Heroes Rise Again
by Suki-Itami
Summary: It's been 7 years since the last time Coon and Friends made any kind of appearance. Now everyone's 16 and have grown out of those childish personas, but they will have to join together once again to stop two of their own friends, but this time's different
1. The Soul Modifier

_Location: _**10 Miles Outside Of South Park,**** Colorado**

_Year: _**2013**

_Mission Leader: _**Mysterion**

_Mission: _**Recover Professor Chaos & General Disarray From The Coon ****To Extract Vital Information**

The blonde teen in a skin-tight dark purple jump suit that had a question mark bouncing from the top like something The Riddler from Batman would have sighed and dropped the mission file on the long table in front of him. Why did every government that sent them a mission insist that **he** was the leader? Granted, he had "street cred" from the incident with Cthulu back when he was nine, but it got so damned annoying.

Besides, why would he want to rescue Professor Chaos? He left him for The Coon months ago. Even if Professor Chaos was in danger, why should Mysterion care?

"Hey," the black haired teen next to him who looked like a tool otaku*, Tool Shed, said to get his attention, "what's the mission?"

When he still didn't answer, another teen in gray spandex with a kite attached to his back, Human Kite spoke up: "Mysterion! What're we doing?"

Mysterion jumped at his friend's voice, finally snapping back to reality. He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked at his allies, his friends. Tool Shed to his immediate left and Human Kite to his immediate right. Next to Tool Shed was who once was a black teen, Tupperware. Across from him was Mosquito, a half-human half-mosquito teen that quite frankly creeped Mysterion out. Next to him was a former teenager, Iron Maiden, who literally was just that, an iron maiden. And finally, across from him was the half-human, half-cereal-puffball Mint-Berry Crunch, who had thankfully returned from his home world when summoned by Mysterion.

He cleared his throat and braced his hands against the table. "Sorry about that. We have to get Professor Chaos and General Disarray from The Coon."

Tool Shed's eyes widened. "Oh dude…sorry."

"Well," Human Kite chimed in, "are we gonna go?"

Mysterion's eyes narrowed. That was a good question, one that he didn't have an answer for. He squeezed his eyes closed. He hadn't seen Professor Chaos since they broke off their relationship six months ago, when he left him for The Coon…

…_Six Months Ago_…

"Hey," a blonde in an orange parka and dark blue skinny jeans ran up to where his friends were waiting at the bus stop as always, "has anyone seen Butters?"

A black-haired teen in a brown jacket and baggy jeans exchanged a look with the redhead in an orange jacket, tight blue jeans, and light green ushanka he was holding hands with. He shook his head. "No, not since yesterday. Why? He disappeared again?"

The blonde nodded. "His parents said he was still home last night when they went to bed, but just was…gone this morning. They thought that maybe he came to the bus stop early."

The redhead shook his head as well. "Sorry Kenny, but we haven't seen him."

Kenny sighed and scratched his head. "Dammit."

"You know what's strange though," the redhead said as-a-matter-of-factly, "is that I haven't seen Cartman since before school let out yesterday either. He's normally here right before you and Butters, Ken."

"Oh yeah, I guess he isn't here. Huh…" The black-haired teen scratched absently at his chin. Cartman's disappearance wasn't too big of a deal. No one ever seemed to care when he skipped.

Kenny's eyes narrowed. "They couldn't be tied together Kyle, that's impossible." Even though he said that, every part of his mind was telling him that he was just saying that.

Kyle shrugged. "Who knows, right? But, I mean, come on, Cartman rarely skips since he got together with Wendy, this being the first time in months, and it just so happens that Butters goes missing when he skips. I highly doubt that's a coincidence dude."

The black-haired teen sighed at the sight of Kenny's face becoming doused in worry. "Jesus Kyle, did you have to go and freak him out?"

"I'm just speaking my opinion Stan!" Kyle huffed. "Look, maybe it **is** a coincidence, but that's just hard for me to accept. Besides, Butters doesn't skip, he's too afraid of getting grounded to skip."

Kenny crossed his arms over his chest and knit his eyebrows together. Even though he hated to admit it, what Kyle said made perfect sense. Cartman rarely skipped anymore and Butters **never** did. So maybe there is something going on. If there is, it would be because of Cartman, he'd always hated Butters and constantly made plans to humiliate or attempt to kill him - those pretty much stopped once Kenny became involved with the innocent blonde though. He looked at his friends. "Come on, we're skipping today too!"

"Huh?" Stan raised an eyebrow. Though Kenny wasn't the person who **loved** school, he never skipped unless he had an emergency of some kind.

"I can't Kenny," Kyle said with an apologetic tone, "I have a test seventh hour."

"We'll get back to school by then at the very latest, okay?" Kenny clapped his hands together in a praying way and gave his friend the irresistible puppy dog eyes. "Please guys?"

Kyle made a face that clearly said he was trying to resist the puppy dog eyes but failing. He sighed and then nodded. "Fine, I'll come along."

Stan chuckled and moved so that he had his arm draped over Kyle's shoulders. "Count me in too!"

Kenny smiled. "Thanks for this guys."

"No problem." Kyle returned the smile. "So, where should we start looking?"

Everyone thought for a while, trying to remember all the places Cartman usually went with Butters to humiliate him ever since they were kids. They all drew up the same conclusion: his basement, the "lair" of Coon and Friends when they were in the fourth grade, where they had kept Butters, at that time known as Professor Chaos, locked in a makeshift cell. That, above all else that they knew of, was the one thing Cartman had done that truly embarrassed Butters completely and totally.

Kenny groaned when they agreed to search Cartman's basement. "This should be fun," he said sarcastically.

"Oh yeah." Kyle rolled his eyes.

Stan grabbed onto Kyle's hand as they trio began walking towards Cartman's house. "We haven't been in his basement **since** we had that stupid Coon and Friends club."

"Yeah, I really didn't wanna have to go back, ever," the redhead sighed.

"Me neither," Kenny agreed.

"Well, if anything, we just need to make sure that Cartman isn't trying to kill Butters or something." Stan shrugged. "Hopefully we're way off though."

Kenny nodded his agreement as they stopped in front of the door into Cartman's house. He raised his fist to knock, but an overly chipper fat brunette in a white t-shirt that had a hastily drawn "C" on the front and black jeans answered the door. The three boys at the door stared blankly at him, not just because of the t-shirt and pants that mimicked his old costume for when he was The Coon, but also because he had a raccoon tail, raccoon ears, whiskers, and sharpened nails that resembled claws to boot. Seriously? He was seriously wearing that?

"Why hello guys," he greeted, "so nice of you to come!"

"Cartman," Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, "**what the hell** are you wearing?"

"Clothes, Kahl, clothes." Cartman smirked.

"Not that, fat ass, I meant that goddamn costume! Why are you wearing that?"

"Costume?" He looked down at himself and then laughed. "Oh my, this is no costume Kahl."

"Yes it is retard!" Kyle yelled. "That's that damn Coon costume from when we were nine!"

"Oh, well, yes, when we were nine it was a costume…back then anyway."

"What're you talking about?" Stan asked with an exasperated sigh.

"Come with me and I'll show you." Cartman turned to walk to his basement, his friends following.

"Cartman," Kenny spoke up as they walked down the darkened stairs to the basement, "we came here to ask you if you know where Butters is, not to see if you've gone completely insane."

Cartman laughed again. "No, I can't say I have, at least not for a few hours."

"Where'd he go?"

"You'll see in just a moment."

Kenny's eyebrows knit together and his ground his teeth. He was getting a really bad feeling the further they descended the stairs, and the feeling he was getting from the two behind him said they had the same feeling.

When the four finally reached the bottom of the stairs, Cartman flipped the light switch on to shoe that he'd done a complete overhaul on the basement. Three of the four walls were lined with full-sized, fully functional super computers only found in sci-fi or superhero movies, the fourth wall had a long mirror installed into it, behind which, another room now existed. Smaller super computers that resembled something out of Battlestar Galactica lined areas ten feet away from the larger super computers, and four more of those same ones surrounded a large device that closely resembled a transporter from Star Trek in the exact center of the room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made completely of sheet metal.

Stan, Kyle, and Kenny stared at the once-basement with astonishment. It was impossible for that to actually exist, right? There was no possible way Cartman could've built that, could've renovated his basement into something straight out of a kick-ass sci-fi film…right?

"Holy shit dude," Kenny said with amazement thick in his voice.

"You can say that again," Stan agreed.

"W-What the hell…?" Kyle looked over at Cartman. "How did you do this?"

Cartman smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. "I had some help from an old enemy turned friend." He pointed over to where someone was slumped over messing with some wires in one of the super computers. "Hey butt hole, introduce yourself."

The figure stood and turned around. His face was bordered in a silver metal sci-fi crown that had a single red ruby in the top center, on his hands were bracers that were made of dark brown cloth and more silver metal, and a dark green silk cape was tied around his neck. That wasn't what Kenny noticed though; it was the short unruly blonde hair, the narrow light blue eyes, the light blue tank top, green pants, and black Converse that he noticed first off. It was Butters dressed as Professor Chaos and holding wrench.

"Butters?" Kenny's mouth dropped open in surprise. "Y-You helped him with this?"

Butters chuckled bashfully and scratched the back of his head. "Not really. You see, The Coon already had the Soul Modifier built. Unfortunately, it was only good for one go, so he chose me so that I could give it a fine tune to suit an unlimited–"

"Wait, wait," Kyle said quickly. "'Soul Modifier?' And why are you referring to **Cartman** as The Coon again?"

"W-Well, that's because he **is** The Coon now. The Soul Modifier changed him into the physical form of what his soul truly feels he is, like it did with me. The moment I stepped out of the Soul Modifier, I really did become Professor Chaos."

There wasn't any response for a minute or two, but finally Kyle said harshly, "That's retarded. Cartman tricked you into believing that you really changed into Professor Chaos so that you could 'help' him build this ridiculous themed basement."

Still, Butters shook his head. "No Kyle, it's true."

"Yes Kahl," Cartman chimed in with yet another smirk gracing his face, "it's all true."

Stan sighed and ran one hand through his hair. "Cartman, this isn't even funny, it's stupid. We need to get to school."

Kenny nodded. "Come on Butters," he held out one hand to his boyfriend, "let's go."

Butters shook his head. "I know everything I need to now, I don't need to go to school."

Kenny shot a glare at Cartman. "Listen Butters, you shouldn't listen to that dumbass, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Exactly!" Kyle agreed.

Cartman sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine, if you guys don't believe me," he gestured to the machine in the center of the room, "then you'll have no problems with just testing out the Soul Modifier for yourselves."

"Fine." Kyle threw his hands into the air and walked forward into the center of the machine. "When this doesn't work, we're all going to school and I'm going to tell everyone just how fucking stupid you acted."

"Fine." Cartman shrugged. "Kenny, Stan, will you kindly join me and Professor Chaos in the safety chamber?"

Kyle raised a concerned eyebrow at the mention of the words "safety chamber." He watched the four teens go through the automatic sliding door and into the room behind the window. He watched through the window as Butters hit multiple buttons, a few moments later, the two halves of the Soul Modifier began softly glowing, catching Kyle's surprised attention.

"What the hell?" Kyle looked up at the top half of the machine in astonishment. Surely it wasn't actually going to work. It'd do a light show and then stop, that was all…right?

"_Kyle,"_ Butters voice rang through speakers placed in all four corners of the room, _"you're gonna feel a little pinch, but don't worry about it. It'll only last a few seconds, if that."_

"Uh," Kyle looked at the others through the window nervously, "okay…?" A pinch? Really? Surely not. Butters was just saying that because Cartman told him to is all.

Just then, the Soul Modifier began humming and whirring and the once soft glowing light became brighter all at once. Kyle's eyes widened before he averted them away from the harsh white light coming from above and below him. A second later, the light shot out from both above and below, encasing him in a cylinder of white light that somehow caused him to defy gravity for a full minute as he floated with his back arched. He felt the pinch for all of half a second, but it was enough to freak him out. Something was happening; his soul was welling up inside of him and then all at once felt like it exploded. He let a short scream escape his throat just before he drop down to his knees on the floor of the Soul Modifier.

The door to the safety room flew open and Stan ran out. "Kyle!" He dropped down on his knees next to his boyfriend. "Are you okay?"

Kyle let out a breath he'd been holding and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." He looked up at Cartman, who was standing right in front of him now. "I don't feel any different fat ass. Now let's go."

Cartman smirked down at the redhead. "It worked, I know it did."

Kyle's eyes narrowed. "It didn't work."

"Yes it did you fucking Jew rat."

"Stop belittling my people you **fat fuck**!" As he yelled, a blast of wind came from nowhere and slammed Cartman back into the back panel of one of the small super computers surrounding the Soul Modifier. Kyle's eyes widened again. "W-What the hell?" He breathed out.

Stan's eyes widened. "Kyle? What was that?"

"I don't know." Kyle lifted his hand, palm up, in front of his face. A tiny wind cyclone formed in the center of his hand. He began shaking. "What's going on?"

Cartman coughed out a laugh as he regained his breath. "You have become the side of yourself that your soul has longed to become. You're now truly Human Kite."

…

*Otaku=a person who is obsessed with something or has an insane amount of knowledge on a particular subject.

_Pairings: _Style (Shed/Kite), Bunny (Mysterion/Chaos), Cartters (Coon/Chaos), Clyde/Token (Mosquito/Tupperware)


	2. Fire and Wind

Kyle ran forward and grabbed onto the neck of Cartman's t-shirt with rage carved into every inch of his face. "What the fuck did you do to me fat ass?"

Cartman just laughed and easily shoved the redhead off of him. "I just told you: You've been turned into Human Kite."

"That's impossible, someone just can't 'change' into something they pretended being as a child! What'd you do, shoot us up when we weren't paying attention? What did you–AGH!" Kyle released Cartman as he felt a growing painful sensation in his back. He wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to get to whatever was hurting him but it wasn't working. He screamed and fell to the floor on his hands and knees. Something was moving around in his back, he could feel it.

Kenny and Stan exchanged a concerned glance for a second before rushing to Kyle's side. "Kyle what's wrong?" Stan asked. He rested one hand on his boyfriend's shoulder in time for both him and Kenny to get thrown back by a quick gust of wind as Kyle let out another pained scream.

During this final scream, the back of Kyle's jacket was shredded open as bones visibly moved under his skin to form a plus before harshly extending to stretch his skin to truly resemble a kite. His bones then seemed to melt through his skin to look like stark white poles and his stretched skin turned black as night. When it was finally over, the pain was gone and there were tears streaming down Kyle's face. He was afraid to look back, knowing what he'd see just from seeing his shadow on the ground below him.

When he sat up, Kenny's eyes went wide as dinner plates and his mouth dropped to the ground. What happened to Kyle? A kite just…grew out of his back…? Kenny rubbed his eyes and looked at Kyle again. Was the weak pot he smoked two weeks ago just now kicking in? If it was, what the hell kind of pot did he smoke?

"Kyle?" Stan's voice squeaked out.

"Wow," Butters sounded astonished but not surprised, "that looked as painful as your transformation Coon."

"It did," Cartman said with a smirk ringing clear in his voice.

After waiting another minute as Butters talked and jotted notes down on a clipboard, Kenny and Stan both slowly approached Kyle to help him back to his feet, unsure if he could even stand at all. They both grabbed onto Kyle's hands and pulled him to his feet, but he did better than balance, he began levitating a few inches over the floor. Stan and Kenny backed away a few steps when it happened. Just what did that Soul Modifier **do** to Kyle?

Kyle looked down with wide eyes when he too realized he was levitating. "Holy shit…"

Butters' eyes widened as well. "W-Wow… I didn't think it'd be so effective!"

"Hey!" Cartman sounded offended. "What about with me?"

"Well, to be honest Coon, you don't have as many powers as Human Kite. With him, there's an entire range of what he could do. I never would've imagined levitation though!"

"Hey asshole, I'm still your–"

"Cartman!" Kenny yelled as he stomped over to the fat teen. "What the fuck does that machine **do**?"

"I told you, it brings out the part of your soul that you long to be."

The blonde's eyes narrowed. The part of his soul that he longed to be…a good person, someone everyone could depend upon, a man Butters wouldn't be ashamed to say he was dating…someone who could finally die. He could make his life worth living and move out of that goddamn house where his drug whoring, abusive parents would always live. Without even bothering to think of just what the machine would change him into, Kenny stepped forward.

"I'll do it."

"Kenny, wait." Kyle slowly moved forward with some extra help as Stan gently pulled his arm forward. When he was close enough, he stopped. "Do you really wanna risk becoming like **this**? Dude, I have a fucking **kite** coming out of my back! And it hurt like hell!"

Kenny glanced over at Kyle and hesitated for a moment when he saw what happened to his friend. Surely he wouldn't become like that. Even if he became his superhero persona, Mysterion, nothing like that could happen. Mysterion was one of the more simple heroes of Coon and Friends, if anything he'd just become that better person that Mysterion was. He looked back at Cartman and Butters. "I'm still gonna do it."

"O-Okay…" Butters seemed hesitant about allowing his boyfriend to use the Soul Modifier but wasn't going to stop him. "Stan, Human Kite, come back into the safety chamber."

"I'm still Kyle!" Kyle argued. "And besides, I can't fit through the damn door thanks to this kite." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to point at the kite he knew was there.

Butters tapped his lips with his pen thoughtfully for a moment and then said, "Well, if your transformation's anything like The Coon's, then you should be able to change back just by thinking about it."

"Huh?"

"Well, for example…did you think about yourself as Human Kite whenever The Coon pointed it out?"

Kyle made a face at Butters continuously calling Cartman The Coon but decided not to bring it up again. Instead, he nodded. "Yeah. But not like this."

"The thought of being that form caused it to come out. Just imagine yourself the way you were and you'll change back."

"Okay?" Seeing no other option, Kyle closed his eyes and imagined himself before the kite came out of his back. A quick burst of wind blew his hair around his head - his ushanka had fallen off while he was in pain minutes ago - for a brief second before he felt his feet touch the ground. He opened his eyes again and looked over his shoulder. The kite was gone; it had sunk back into his skin. "I didn't even feel that," he said in surprise. He thought for sure he'd feel the same agonizing pain as before.

Butters shook his head. "It's just that first transformation that's the most painful. From now on you shouldn't feel it at all when you summon the kite."

"Uh, cool." Kyle smiled at Stan as his boyfriend removed his brown jacket and put it on around the redhead after he had to discard his own torn jacket and t-shirt.

Kenny began tapping his toe impatiently. He understood that Kyle needed to get the kite to sink back into him in order to be able to get into the safety chamber, but Butters' fascination on Kyle's transformation and the fluff going on between Stan and Kyle was just wasting time. When Stan noticed Kenny's toe beating against the floor and the slight glare the tall blonde was sending at the four standing around, he suggested they go into the safety chamber. Finally everyone did that and Kenny backed up a few steps to be standing in the middle of the Soul Modifier.

"_Ken,"_ Butters voice once again came through the speakers, _"you're gonna feel the same pinch Kyle did, alright…?"_

Kenny nodded sharply once and braced himself for it. He would go through any amount of pain if it meant he could be a better man and be worthy of Butters. The machine glowed softly and then became brighter as the same humming and whirring as earlier overtook all other sound in the room. Kenny slipped his eyes closed and waited. He could still see some light come through his eyelids as the cylinder surrounded him and lifted him into the air. That's when he felt something slightly more than a pinch; it was a full-on burning sensation that pierced his very soul.

His eyes flew open and his teeth ground together with the sheer pain of it. He screamed through his teeth and then suddenly dropped to his back on the floor of the machine. He groaned and sat up. Not quite the elegant landing he'd hoped for…

"Ken!" Butters ran out of the safety chamber and helped his boyfriend to his feet. "Are you okay?"

Kenny groaned and rubbed the back of his head where it was throbbing. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've been through much worse; a bump on the head is nothing."

Butters smiled. "Good."

"Anyway, I felt more than a pinch. It was almost like…I was being burned."

The smaller blonde's eyes became concerned. He rested one finger on his lips thoughtfully. "That's not right…"

"Oh well," Cartman said a little harshly, "your soul had a lot more to change than the Jew's did."

Kyle raised one arm and sent a blast of wind at Cartman, sending him flying again. "Wind's surprisingly easy to control," he commented.

"It **is** the most basic element," Stan said with a smile. "I'd be surprised if it wasn't easy to control."

Butters nodded in agreement. "Stan's right." He turned his attention back to Kenny. "So, do feel any different? I mean, I didn't figure you'd have any physical differences like Human Kite or The Coon since you were, well, kinda plain…"

Kenny sighed but knew Butters was right, Mysterion was kinda plain. He began wondering if he could do anything at all. "I don't have the urge to smoke anymore, if that counts."

"Uh…no, that's not really what I was getting at…"

"Then, no, not really…"

"Hmm…" Butters turned when he heard Cartman and Kyle doing their usual routine of yelling at each other and suddenly got an idea when Kyle raised his arm to launch another burst of air at Cartman. "Kyle wait a second!" When he received a weird look from all three teens, he gestured to Kenny. "I wanna see if he has any powers like what you have Kyle. Maybe he has aerokinesis too or something like it."

Kyle nodded and stepped back into Stan's arms. Cartman faced Kenny and Butters with a deep glare. He hated being used as a guinea pig for anything, especially something that could potentially hurt him, but he didn't even think Kenny had any powers anyway. Why was he worried?

Butters stepped aside and Kenny held up one arm in front of him, waiting for something to happen…

…When nothing did, Kenny glanced over at Kyle. "Is there anything you have to do, or anything that happens in general to activate yours?"

"Normally when I'm mad at Cartman I can use it." Kyle shrugged.

Kenny nodded and looked back at Cartman. He had to think of a memory in which he was really angered with Cartman; there were a lot to choose from. He searched through them all quickly, finally pinpointing one that still pissed him off to this day. Suddenly, Cartman's raccoon tail caught fire.

Cartman screamed and started running around in a panic. "PUTMEOUTPUTMEOUTPUTMEOUT!"

Calmly, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny watched as Cartman ran around like a madman yelling for someone put out his tail. Butters ran off into the safety chamber to look for a fire extinguisher. The three still in the main room didn't really feel like helping Cartman since they knew that he wouldn't help them either.

Stan started laughing, "Hey look guys, Cartman's flaming!"

Kyle and Kenny started laughing so hard that they doubled over and then hit the floor. They couldn't believe Stan actually said that, as true as it was!

Butters ran back out of the safety chamber with a fire extinguisher in hand. "Stop running around!" When Cartman stopped running, Butters sprayed his tail with the white foam of the extinguisher and sighed. "Are you okay?"

Cartman glanced back at his tail and, at seeing the fur there singed off, stomped over to Stan. "What did you say asshole?"

"What?" Stan chuckled. "It's just a joke dude."

"Bullshit!" Cartman grabbed onto the neckline of Stan's shirt and raised his fist.

"Stan!" Kenny and Kyle both raised their arms at Cartman, launching a fireball and a gust of wind at the fat brunette at the same time. The result was a small fire cyclone that quickly caught fire to a small area of the room before dissolving.

Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman all began yelling at once, "PUTITOUTPUTITOUTPUTITOUT!"

Butter sighed and calmly sprayed the flames with what was left in the fire extinguisher. He set the fire extinguisher on the floor next to his feet. "Come on; help me clean this mess up."

Kenny nodded and followed Butters back to the safety chamber to get some towels so they could clean up the foam. Once they were in the room and the behind the open metal closet door, Kenny pinned Butters against the shelves of the closet and brought their lips together roughly. He missed the sensation of their kiss even though it hadn't even been a full day since they'd last kissed each other.

Suddenly Butters pushed gently on Kenny's chest until their lips disconnected. He hung his head; his face was bright red with shame and regret. He couldn't even look at the taller blonde since he knew that his face would be laced his confusion and hurt. "I…I'm sorry Ken–Mysterion, but…no…not now at least."

"Why?" Kenny was confused; Butters never seemed to care about PDA before, especially not in front of their friends.

"…Please, I'll explain later, but you'll just to…to wait…"

Kenny's face dropped, but he just nodded and hugged Butters tight to him. Eventually Kenny released the smaller blonde and they grabbed towels to clean up the mess Stan and Kyle, and Cartman were arguing over. Suddenly, without understanding why, Kenny felt empty. He looked over at Butters, who hadn't looked at his face since their moment in the safety chamber. What was wrong with Butters that he completely shut Kenny out? It was really strange…


	3. Mysterion's Nightmare

It was almost four hours later before anyone looked at a clock. Kyle was the one to look for a clock and see that it was noon. He began freaking out, saying that he missed a lot of the school day and that they needed to get to the high school soon. Stan stood there trying to calm his boyfriend down, telling him that they were about to leave for the school and that he just needed to breathe.

Kenny chuckled from where he was watching the scene between Stan and Kyle unfold at the small wood table inside of the safety chamber. He stood and smiled at Butters. "I'll see ya later, okay babe?" He pecked Butters on the forehead, not thinking about it until the smaller blonde's face turned bright red.

_Whoops, I forgot he didn't want PDA today._ Kenny sighed quietly and then turned to follow his friend up the stairs and to the first floor of the house.

At the top of the stairs, Kyle's hands flew up to his head. "Oh crap I forgot my hat downstairs."

Kenny smiled and turned around to go back down to the once-basement. "I'll get it for ya. Just wait here." He walked down the stairs, ready to announce to Cartman and Butters why he was back so soon, but froze on the last step.

Cartman had Butters pinned to the floor with his tongue shoved down the blonde's throat, and Butters wasn't fighting it. Kenny couldn't believe what he was seeing. Butters was…cheating on him? And with **Cartman**? That fat ass wasn't even worth a single millisecond of Butters' time and Kenny knew Butters knew it!

Kenny began trembling so much that the hand gripping the wooden railing screwed to the wall couldn't even stay steady. Tears completely bypassed welling in his eyes and simply fell down his face. When he finally managed to get himself under control and wipe the tears from his face, he found his voice at last.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Kenny's voice was half an octave lower than usual; he had truly reverted back to Mysterion now.

Cartman and Butters disconnected their lips and looked over at where Kenny was standing glaring at them. Butters turned the brightest shade of red possible and turned his head away with guilt deep in his eyes, he hated that Kenny had to see that. Cartman simply smirked at the taller blonde, he was glad that Kenny saw them, it gave him such satisfaction to see his friend's face carved with hurt and betrayal, and to see his eyes glazed over with unshed tears.

"K…Ken," Butters muttered, "I'm…so sorry you h-had to see this…"

"He's no longer Kenny," Cartman laughed manically; "he's fully become Mysterion. Haven't you, whore?"

Mysterion ground his teeth together and ran forward to beat Cartman to death, but stopped when Butters moved to place himself between Mysterion and Cartman. The taller blonde stopped and glared down at Butters. "Move out of the way Chaos!"

Butters bit his bottom lip for a moment and then easily stiffened as if to physically show he wasn't going to move. His own voice dropped as he spoke, the voice of Professor Chaos: "No, I'm not moving."

Mysterion's eyes narrowed. "Why? Why would you even **consider** getting involved with that goddamn asshole, Coon?"

"Well where do you get the right to patronize me?" Professor Chaos retorted. "What made you think it was right for you to cheat on me with Stan, **and** Kyle, **and** Craig?"

Mysterion froze again, his eyes widened in surprise. "H-How did you find out about that?"

"The Coon has many ways of discovering information best left alone," Cartman chuckled.

"And **that** was information best left alone fat boy!"

"Whoa dude," Kyle said from behind Mysterion as him and Stan descended the stairs, "you slept with Kenny too?"

Stan nodded. "Yeah, it was shortly before we got together actually."

Mysterion glanced back over his shoulder. "What're you guys doing here? I told you to wait upstairs."

"We got worried when we heard you yelling," Kyle said concernedly. "What's going on?"

When Mysterion didn't say anything, mostly because he didn't **want to**, Cartman smirked. His voice too went an octave lower: "Mysterion has just found out why Chaos doesn't want to be held by him anymore." He wrapped an arm possessively around Professor Chaos to emphasize his point. "After all, he **is** mine now!"

Kyle and Stan's mouths both dropped to the ground. They couldn't believe what they were hearing and seeing! Butters couldn't leave Kenny for Cartman, it just didn't make sense! Kenny was the only one who ever treated Butters like he had worth even before they started dating - of course, they discovered that Kenny and Butters had actually dated secretly for nearly a year before coming out to everyone about it only a few months ago - while Cartman never showed Butters any kind of respect, care, or love! So, why…?

"Hold on," Stan finally said as he shook his head in confusion, "this doesn't make sense! Butters, I thought you loved Kenny!"

Professor Chaos gripped onto the front of The Coon's shirt. "Butters loved, and still does love Kenny, but I cannot love Mysterion." He smirked just slightly. "He didn't make me who I am now, that I owe to The Coon."

"You don't owe that fat ass anything!" Mysterion screamed.

The Coon laughed loudly. "Of course he owes me! He owes me for everything he's become, and that's far more than you can say you've done for him! Hell, you cheated on him three times you whore!"

Mysterion's hands clenched into fists and began trembling violently. How could The Coon patronize him like that? He was **clearly** cheating on Wendy with Professor Chaos! "What right do you have to say shit? You're cheating on Wendy!"

"I broke up with her this morning."

Stan and Kyle both made a concerned face. Every time Wendy and Cartman had a fight in which they were about to break up or they did break up, Wendy always sought comfort from Stan. (She tried to seduce him once just to get back at Cartman, but it failed.)

"Besides, what do I need that bitch for," The Coon turned Professor Chaos' head to him, "when I have the innocence of this one to take?" He brought their lips back together roughly.

A fireball formed around one of Mysterion's closed fists. "Get the fuck away from him," he threw the ball at The Coon, "fat ass!"

At seeing the fireball, Professor Chaos shoved The Coon out of the way and crossed his arms in front of his body in a protective X to brace for the fireball. Upon impact, he flew backwards until he hit the nearest super computer, his bracers had burned off and the skin beneath was burned severely.

"Butters!" His voice returned to its normal tone, he was Kenny again. He ran over to the small blonde and dropped to his knees. "How badly are you burned?"

Butters glanced over at him with tears glazing his eyes. "K-Kenny, please just…just leave…" His voice was cracking with each word; he was on the verge of crying.

"But Butters, you're hurt," Kenny argued. He wasn't going to leave Butters now, not while he was hurt with burns **he** inflicted on him.

Butters shook his head and gently shoved Kenny away. "Eric will help me."

Kenny ground his teeth. "No he won't! He doesn't give a crap about you!"

"He has to," Butters murmured, "he made me into someone stronger…"

A stray tear fell down Kenny's face as he slowly stood. He knew that he had to accept the fact that Butters really, truly believed that Cartman turned him into Professor Chaos because he cared, that that was why Butters left him. Kenny knew better though and he wanted to grab his beloved and force him to come along so he could treat his burns instead of trusting Cartman to do it, but he didn't. What he did was something he would later regret doing, he turned, scooped Kyle's ushanka off the floor, and stomped back up the stairs to go to school. He was too hurt to realize the mistake he would only later acknowledge that he made by just walking away.

…

"Kenny, wait up!" Kyle ran up to his blonde friend with Stan trailing just behind him and snatched his ushanka from his grip. "Dude, why'd you just walk out like that? Butters is hurt."

"So am I," Kenny muttered as he kept walking, his eyes trained on the sidewalk in front of him.

"Yeah but Kenny, if you really love him–"

"I have to let him go!" The blonde whipped around and shot a glare at the redhead. "I know the fucking saying Kyle! I don't wanna hear it right now!"

"Kenny chill out," Stan said a tad defensively. He knew how violent Kenny could get when he was in a fit of rage and didn't want him taking it out of his boyfriend.

"That's not what I gonna say," Kyle said softly. "I was gonna say that if you really love him, you should've stayed by his side."

"He doesn't want me," Kenny growled, "so why should I have…?"

"**Because** that's what you do for the ones you love! Even if he hates you, if you really love him, you should stay by his side, even just to make sure he'll be okay!"

There was a brief moment of silence before Stan said, "Kyle's right Kenny."

Kenny crossed his arms over his chest and hung his head so that the tears welling in his eyes could be hidden. He knew his friends were right, but he still didn't want to listen to what they had to say. When he finally spoke again, his voice had dropped once again, reverting him to Mysterion once again, "Cartman doesn't deserve him…"

Kyle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're doing the same thing Butters does when he's feeling weak, changing personalities."

"Kenny's always done this," Mysterion said evenly. "Especially after sleeping with you both and Craig as well, he felt simply awful about what he did to Butters that he changed into me. I'm a better version of himself; the one Kenny wants to be. And Butters said that he couldn't love **me**, not him. And if he can't love me, how can he love Kenny?" He sighed when he noticed Stan and Kyle were giving him strange looks. "This happens all the time, ever since we were nine-years-old."

Stan and Kyle exchanged a sympathetic glance and then looked back at Mysterion. The way Mysterion talked about him and Kenny like they were two different people freaked them both out but they weren't about to say anything, fearing what the reaction would be.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Stan finally said, "Mysterion, if you really are the better side of Kenny, then listen to me. You need to go back and win Butters back **for** Kenny, for both of you."

Mysterion looked at Stan with surprise. "You want me to go back?"

Stan nodded. "Yes."

Mysterion sighed and scratched absently at his cheek. He didn't want to go back to Cartman's for anything, which unfortunately included the teen that dumped him only five minutes ago, but he did think that they needed to go back if only just to awaken Stan's own soul. "I don't want to go back. Not for Butters–err, Professor Chaos anyway," he continued before Stan or Kyle could protest. "Stan, you still need your soul awakened."

Stan raised an eyebrow. "Dude, I don't **need** my soul changed by that machine. I'm fine how I am."

Kyle nodded. "I actually kinda wish I hadn't done it. I mean, aerokinesis is really cool, but the kite that I can summon is a little much."

Mysterion's eyes narrowed. "We need Stan to be awakened, for the future."

"The future?" Stan and Kyle exchanged a confused look.

Mysterion shook his head and sighed just slightly. "Never mind. Look, we just need to get back to Cartman's just long enough to jack the Soul Modifier."

Stan shook his head. "Mysterion–"

"You're gonna do this!" The blonde said demandingly. "I don't care if you don't want to Stan, believe me, it's necessary!"

"Okay, okay." Stan rolled his eyes. "Jesus Christ!"

Him and Kyle followed Mysterion back to Cartman's house reluctantly. Why were they just turning around and going back now? They could've just waited until after school to go back - at least that's what Kyle believed, (he was really starting to freak out about that test he had seventh hour). Besides, it wasn't like any of them really **wanted** to go back, the only reason they were was because Mysterion said that changing Stan was necessary.

When they got close enough, Mysterion pulled Kyle's ushanka off of him and stuffed it into the deep pocket of his orange parka. When asked why he told Kyle that they could tell Cartman's mom that they forgot it in the basement.

"Hey, what if Cartman's still here?" Stan asked when they reached the front door.

"Kyle," Mysterion glanced back at the redhead, "you'll have to restrain both The Coon and Professor Chaos if they're still here. Can you do it?"

Kyle looked at his hand briefly and then nodded. "I'll try."

Mysterion raised his fist and rapped sharply on the door. It was Cartman's mom who answered with her usual smile. "Why hello there boys. Eric's not here right now. He left a little bit ago with another one of his little friends to get to school."

"Oh no," Mysterion said smoothly, "we think Kyle might've left his hat downstairs. We've just come to get it."

"Oh, okay then." She stood aside for them to walk in. "Go on downstairs. If you boys want anything to drink or snack on, just ask."

"Thank you Ms. Cartman," Kyle said with a smile as he followed Mysterion and Stan down the stairs into the basement.

Mysterion flipped the light switch on at the bottom of the stairs and quickly looked around in the bright light. Once he confirmed Cartman and Butters, (or Coon and Chaos, whichever they had been when they left), were really gone, he strolled forward to the Soul Modifier. There were rounded pieces of plexi-glass that looked like they were being welded together before having to be left that way scattered around the base of the machine. It looked like Chaos had been trying to build a better safety guard around the Soul Modifier as opposed to using the safety chamber each time the machine had to be used. Not a bad idea really.

"Okay Stan," Mysterion pointed at the Soul Modifier as him and Kyle made their way to the safety chamber, "go stand over there."

"Dude, do you know how to work this thing?" Stan asked nervously as he stood in the center of the Soul Modifier.

"I saw Chaos work it when Kyle was changed." Mysterion shrugged. "It's not too complicated."

In the safety chamber, Kyle reached for his ushanka in Mysterion's parka and pulled it back on his head. The blonde ignored the movement and began powering up the Soul Modifier as he had seen Chaos do. He clicked down the button for the microphone to remind Stan of the sensation he could feel during the change. Finally he pressed the dark blue button to activate the Soul Modifier.

Mysterion held his breath as the machine began to give off the usual white light._ God, I hope this works…_


	4. The Old Group

The usual blinding white light surrounded Stan and lifted him into the air that same as it had Kyle and Kenny. Like Kenny before him, he felt more than a pinch, for him it was an electrical shock. He couldn't be sure if it was what he was supposed to feel or if the Soul Modifier was malfunctioning, but the only sign he let out that it was in pain was a short scream just before he landed on his butt on the floor of the machine.

He shook his head and looked around as Kyle and Mysterion ran out of the safety chamber they had been in while he'd been in the machine. He didn't feel any different but remembered that both his boyfriend and his friend had said the same thing shortly before discovering they had some weird abilities, so he didn't say anything about it.

"Are you okay Stan?" Kyle asked as he helped his boyfriend to his feet.

Stan nodded and looked himself over, as if expecting to have some weird transformation happen to him like it did Kyle. "I wonder what I can do now…"

"Well, when we were kids, you had," Kyle made air quotes, "'mental command over all power tools.' Maybe you can actually do that now."

Mysterion nodded and pointed to a discarded electric buzz saw on the ground near the plexi-glass. "Try it on that."

Stan turned to where Mysterion was pointing and concentrated on the buzz saw, unsure if he should hold out his arm like Kyle and Mysterion have to. His curiosity was answered moments later when the saw turned on and flew over to the trio, who all had to dive to the ground to avoid getting their heads getting cut off. It finally stopped when it implanted deep into one of the walls near the safety chamber.

"**What the hell** were you thinking?" Mysterion demanded. His heart was pounding in his ears from the buzz saw flying overhead just moments ago. "Turning it on and telling it to come over here is not a good idea!"

"I agree with Mysterion," Kyle said nervously as he stood back up on shaking legs with Stan's help. "You could've killed us!"

Stan chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head innocently. "I didn't know that would happen. I don't even use power tools, how was I supposed to know that that would happen?"

Kyle sighed and then smiled slightly. "Okay," he smacked Stan's shoulder playfully, "you're off the hook this time. Just be careful from now on, alright?"

Stan smiled and pulled Kyle into a quick hug. "I will babe."

Slightly jealous at the scene between his two best friends, (though he'd never admit it), Mysterion cleared his throat to grab their attention. "Now that Tool Shed's been awakened, we should try to find the others."

"Others?" Kyle raised an eyebrow. "You mean Clyde, Token, and Timmy?"

Mysterion nodded. "Exactly. They need to be changed too."

Stan and Kyle exchanged a confused look. Why would they need to change everyone? Was something major about to happen? If so, how did Mysterion know about it? Finally Kyle asked why they needed to be changed.

Mysterion looked like he considered telling them for a few seconds and then just shook his head. "Just believe me, they need to be changed."

"Well, we can just come back after school with them," Stan pointed out. He glanced over at Kyle, who had temporarily forgotten about school, in time to see him start freaking out about the test he had seventh hour.

Kyle nodded and grabbed onto Stan's hand. "Come on Ken–Mysterion, we'll just come back later!"

"Coon and Chaos could be back by then. We need to get them here now." Mysterion crossed his arms over his chest.

"They're probably in school though. Which is where we should be!" Kyle looked at the watch on his left wrist and then began shaking it whenever he noticed that it stopped at the time he had used the machine. "Fuck!" He looked over at the clock. It was nearly time for seventh hour. "Damn it all! We're going **now**!" He raised both arms and willed two mini cyclones to entrap Stan and Mysterion. He ran back up the stairs and out of the door.

Once outside, he released the two and summoned another burst of wind to carry all three of them swiftly to the high school. He would be damned if he missed that test! The last thing he needed was an F near the end of year!

At the high school, the burst of wind vanished and the redhead ran inside in time to hear the dismissal bell for sixth hour go off. Stan sighed deeply and watched his boyfriend run into the building. Sometimes he wondered if Kyle preferred school and studying more than him.

He looked over at the blonde standing next to him. "Guess we should go inside, huh Mysterion?"

"Kenny again," Kenny said evenly.

"Will you make up your mind dude?" Stan put his hands on his hips.

Kenny chuckled and scratched the back of his head bashfully. "Sorry but I just change depending on my mood."

"Oh. So, you're feeling better than earlier?"

He shook his head. "No…I'm not… I would like nothing more than to find Butters and bring him back to me…but it's not like I can, I've screwed everything up," he stared blankly at the glass entrance ahead of him, "I know it."

Stan rolled his eyes, he didn't think that Kenny screwed anything up, he just made a mistake. Everyone does–hell, even he'll admit he's done wrong by Kyle more than once–but it doesn't necessarily mark the end of a relationship, (granted, Kenny shouldn't have slept with Stan, Kyle, and Craig, but it **was** a while back). Even though he thought that though, Stan didn't say a word, he just hooked his arm in Kenny's and led him into the high school. A moment later, they went their separate ways to visit their lockers and go to their final two classes - Kenny actually kinda wondered what the point of coming was, for him at least.

As Kenny reached his locker, he looked around, trying to spot Token or Clyde - Timmy spent his entire day in the Special ED room, so finding him wouldn't be difficult - walking to their own classes. Once he grabbed his English textbook from the bottom of his locker, he spotted the first person he needed to talk to, the brunette jock Clyde Donovan.

"Clyde!" Kenny ran over to the jock when he stopped to see who yelled for him.

Clyde made a bit of a face. He wasn't Kenny's biggest fan, but then again, not a lot of the jocks were since Kenny had a bad habit of having one night stands with them while they were drunk - luckily Cartman hadn't found out that bit of information. "What do you want?"

"Look, I know you don't like me," he held up one hand when he saw Clyde open his mouth to agree, "but me, Stan, and Kyle **really** need your help after school. It'd be great if you could just look past the fact that I'm not your favorite person and give us a hand."

Clyde sighed and put one hand on his hip. "What is it?"

Kenny smiled. Good, he was at least going to hear him out. "Well, the best way to explain it is that Cartman's gone super asshole again. He's…well, he's kind of," he paused for a moment to think of a way to describe it without seeming insane, "kidnapped Butters in a way, and forced him to build some weird ass machine that, well," he chuckled, "turned us all into our superhero personas that we created back in the fourth grade."

Clyde stared at the blonde blankly for a moment before turning and walking off. Kenny yelled at him to wait up and proceeded to chase the jock halfway to the science hall before Clyde turned around to face him again. "Do you think I'm fucking gullible or some shit? I'm not falling for that Kenny!"

"It's true; I'm not trying to trick you!"

"Bullshit."

Kenny sighed and looked around before holding up his hand between their faces. "Don't believe me?" Tiny flames appeared just over the tips of each of his fingers. "Here's your proof."

Clyde's eyes went wide as dinner plates. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He had to be hallucinating! Yeah, that was it! Kenny does not **really** have flames coming from the tips of his fingers! He shook his head and tried to change the picture in front of him, but it didn't work, the flames were still there. "What…? How are you doing that?"

The flames disappeared from Kenny's fingertips as quickly as they appeared. "If you really wanna know you'll take what I said earlier seriously and join me, Kyle, and Stan after school."

The brunette ground his teeth together. He had a hard time believing that Cartman forced Butters to build a machine that brought out their old superhero personas, but he **did** think it'd be cool to be able to summon fire. He sighed and then nodded. "Fine, I'll help you guys."

"Great!" Kenny smiled widely and started backing away to leave for his class. "Oh, and don't forget your boyfriend okay? We need him too."

"Wait! What? You didn't say anything about that!" Clyde yelled after him.

"Don't worry; we're just getting the old group back together for this!" Kenny called back. "I'm getting Timmy to join us too!" He waved and then turned around to run to class as the minute warning bell sounded off.

…

After the final bell of the day rang, Kenny knocked on the door of the Special ED room and walked through the threshold. The teacher looked at him strange and asked why he was there.

"I'm looking for Timmy," Kenny said as convincingly as he could.

Behind him, the familiar voice behind him said, "Timmy?"

Kenny turned and smiled at the redhead he hadn't seen since the beginning of middle school. "Hey there Timmy. Remember me?" Timmy smiled and nodded. Kenny's smile got wider. "Great!" That sped things up considerably. "Hey, wanna hang out with me, Stan, Kyle, Clyde, and Token today?"

"Timmy!" He said enthusiastically. Kenny interpreted it as a yes.

"Cool dude!" The blonde held his arm out to the side so Timmy could go into the hall first. "After you."

Kenny followed Timmy as he rolled his electric wheelchair out to the glass front doors where Stan, Kyle, Clyde, and Token - oddly enough, the only teen in South Park with ebony skin, his hair black hair in the usual mini-fro and he wore a deep purple shirt and dark jeans - were waiting. Stan, Clyde, and Token were talking about the upcoming football conditioning for the next school year, leaving Kyle looking awkward and out of place since he hadn't played football since elementary school - he still played when his friends and boyfriend played a game for fun, but since he was so involved with Key Club and Honors Society, he couldn't find the time to play for the high school even if he wanted to.

Kyle looked over at Kenny and Timmy as they approached. "Hey guys!" He jogged over to meet them, clearly tired of the football talk. "So Kenny, what's the plan?"

"We're going back to Cartman's to use the Soul Modifier on these three." Kenny smirked and made a determined fist, the shadow of a flame began to dance around it. "We'll have the old group back together again!"

"I have one question about that though," Clyde said as he and Token walked up behind Stan, "what is the point? And **why** are you so determined to have our superhero personas come back?"

"Yeah," Token nodded, "I'm wondering that too."

Kenny crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "Believe me, it's hard to explain."

Everyone around the blonde began exchanging confused looks, not liking the way he was keeping them out of the loop. He clearly knew something that he had no intentions of telling the others, and it was going to bother them until they found out. Realizing that no one else was going to ask anything, Stan stepped forward.

"Okay Kenny, you need to tell us what's going on. I mean, you made me change without explaining, and I had no problem with that," it helped him cheat in his final hour shop class, "but we really need to know if you're going to change everyone else too."

Kenny groaned. "Really?"

Kyle nodded. "Yeah dude, we need to know. Especially if it's something important, which is what you're making it sound like."

The blonde ground his teeth together and averted his eyes. Damn! Maybe he should've been more discreet about it, he really didn't want to explain what he saw in his mind, what he knew would happen in only twenty-four hours. But - he looked back at the five teens in front of him - it didn't look like he had much of a choice. He drew in a breath and said carefully so as not to sound completely insane, "Tomorrow afternoon, Cartman–err, really, The Coon, is going to launch a full scale assault on South Park with Professor Chaos and General Disarray. He has every intention of making everyone in town assimilate to his rule…we have to stop him."

Stan and Kyle nodded, completely ready to help in any way they could, but Clyde and Token both pinched the bridge of their noses and sighed. Was Kenny insane or did he think they were all stupid? That made little to no sense. Granted, they believed that Cartman would try to take over South Park and make everyone bow to him, even as The Coon, that part wasn't farfetched, but a serious, full-scale assault…? Clyde and Token could tell that even Timmy had a hard time believing it.

"Dude," Clyde sighed deeply, "have you completely lost your mind? Cartman doesn't have the time, money, or equipment to launch a full-scale attack on us."

Kenny sighed again and crossed his arms over his chest. "I didn't figure you'd believe me if I straight out told you. **That's** why you guys need to come with me, Stan, and Kyle back to Cartman's. We could prove it to you. The Soul Modifier will be more than enough proof, not to mention I already you a bit of my fire ability Clyde."

The brunette's lips formed a straight line. He'd convinced himself he'd been hallucinating that, well it seemed that that hadn't been the case. He couldn't very well disprove something he'd seen…

"Well," Token spoke up when he noticed his boyfriend was at a loss for words, "why don't you prove it to the rest of us? Show us your 'fire ability.'"

Kenny smirked and held up one hand, palm facing up to the sky, a large bright flame forced there, shooting towards the clouds. He looked at the shocked faces of Token and Timmy and knew that they believed him. The flame disappeared from his hand. "So? You guys believe me now?"

"Y-Yeah," Token breathed out.

"T-Timmy…"

"Great!" Kenny clapped his hands together excitedly. "Now, we have to get you three changed so that we can stop Cartman!" He pumped his fist into the air and then smirked triumphantly. The Coon wasn't going to prevail, South Park wasn't going to be taken over, and maybe, just maybe, Kenny could win back Butters' heart before the time apart took its toll on both of them.


	5. Final Changes

Quietly, Kenny nudged open the front door of the Cartman residence. No one, not even Mrs. Cartman had answered when he'd knocked so he picked the door open with one of the bobby pins Kyle carried around. He looked around the darkened living room before evaluating that no one was home and walked over to the still open basement door. The light that would've flooded up to the doorframe was off, encasing the stairwell in complete black.

"Okay, it's all clear," Kenny called back to where his friends were still waiting at the front door.

The others walked into the empty house and followed Kenny down the stairs into the basement - Timmy had help of course. The blonde flipped the light switch on and stopped, behind him, everyone else did the same. The entire room was destroyed, the equipment was smashed, wires were hanging out of the broken machines and sparks were flying out as well, (it was amazing the basement hadn't caught fire yet). The Soul Modifier looked like it had been the main target of whomever or whatever had destroyed the basement, nearly completely destroyed.

Kyle raised a surprised eyebrow. "What the hell?"

Clyde sighed deeply and placed his hands on his hips. "It figures that Cartman would do this. He must've thought we'd come after you three were changed."

Kenny's eyes narrowed and he hit the sheet metal wall hard with his fist. "Dammit!" How could he not have seen this coming? There was no way the damage could be repaired and he knew that none of them could rebuild the Soul Modifier, only Professor Chaos had really known how it worked.

"What now?" Token asked as he looked between his friends and boyfriend, who all seemed at a loss.

"I don't know," Kenny said through ground teeth.

Stan sighed and wrapped his arms around Kyle's waist as the redhead leaned into his chest. He guessed that he, Kenny, and Kyle could **probably** take on The Coon and Professor Chaos, but they weren't entirely sure **what** they could do, that definitely put them at a disadvantage. He rested his chin on Kyle's shoulder and suddenly found himself imagining the machines putting themselves back together on their own, just the way they had been. All the wires connected properly, every piece of glass was back in place, and every switch and button was working again.

Clyde's eyes went wide. "What the fuck?"

Everyone except for Stan backed up a step with shock. The destroyed machines were…repairing themselves…? Nuts and bolts easily screwed themselves back into place, metal flattened out or shaped itself back to the way it was before it had been destroyed, and gears moved back to where they belonged. In a matter of minutes the basement was completely back to the way it was.

Kyle grabbed onto the front of Stan's shirt. "Are you seeing this Stan?" When his boyfriend didn't answer, the redhead looked back at him. "Stan?" He let out a short scream and backed away from Stan when he saw the black-haired teen's eyes had become wide and completely glazed over in neon orange with little snippets of static electricity bursting randomly from them. "What the hell is happening?"

At seeing Stan's eyes, everyone backed away into the basement closer to the Soul Modifier. What was wrong with Stan's eyes? Could it have something to do with the machines all suddenly repairing themselves? Wondering just that, Kenny stepped forward towards his friend and reached out with one shaking hand to grab his shoulder.

"Stan?"

Suddenly, Stan's head snapped over to look at his blonde friend. "The name's Tool Shed," he said evenly. His voice rang and echoed as if he were speaking into a glass bowl; he raised one arm more fluidly out in front of him and showed him palm to the window of the still destroyed safety chamber, which quickly repaired itself. Tool Shed smirked and turned his gaze to Kyle. "Human Kite," he held out one hand, "my love…come here."

Hesitantly, only because this side of Stan scared him a little, Kyle walked forward and grabbed onto his boyfriend's hand. Easily, he was pulled into the black-haired teen's arms and kissed passionately. He leaned into the kiss, not caring that everyone was watching on - he never did, it was always Stan that had been concerned with everyone watching, it seemed that his identity as Tool Shed changed that.

A moment later, Tool Shed's eyes stopped glowing and he released Kyle with a deep blush. He was Stan again. "Why did I do that?" He muttered.

Clyde laughed loudly, "I think your new personality's a bit of an exhibitionist!"

Stan's blush got worse. "Yeah, it seems that way…"

Kyle smiled widely. "Hey, I like it!" He winked.

Kenny chuckled and then became serious again. "Okay guys, we need to concentrate. Everything's fixed, so we can change you three." He gestured to Clyde, Token, and Timmy and then to the Soul Modifier. "Step onto the machine."

The three teens exchanged a concerned look but still went over to the Soul Modifier and waited as Kenny, Stan, and Kyle walked into the safety chamber. In the chamber, Kenny powered up the machine the same way he had before and warned Clyde, Token, and Timmy of the sensation they would feel.

"Hey, is it really safe to change all three of them at the same time?" Kyle questioned. It really didn't seem like a very good idea to put three people in a machine at the same time, but maybe he'd seen too many sci-fi movies where stuff like that had gone wrong.

Kenny shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not."

"Then maybe we should do each sep–"

"Too late." He pressed the button down to activate the Soul Modifier.

The three in the safety chamber watched with curiosity as the same blinding white cylinder of light surrounded their three friends as it had them. The machine lifted all three of them into the air at once. Clyde and Token both felt a small pinch, nothing serious, but Timmy suddenly felt something quickly stab through his soul. He didn't scream though, he just let it pass through him as if he didn't feel a thing. The three boys then dropped back down, Clyde onto his knees, Timmy back into his wheelchair, and Token on his feet, though he stumbled a few steps forward when he did.

Stan, Kyle, and Kenny stepped out of the safety chamber and went towards their friends. The three were wondering what the others could do seeing as their old superhero personas were the most complicated of all of the Coon and Friends.

Token looked down at his hands and down at his front. Nothing seemed any different, nor did he feel any different than earlier. Maybe it didn't work, the Soul Modifier **had **been completely destroyed before Tool Shed willed it to fix itself, it probably wasn't working right anymore. He shrugged. "Well, you guys tried, but it didn't–**what the hell**?" His eyes widened as his skin stretched and became halfway transparent, just barely showing the bone, veins, and arteries beneath. His skull stretched and reshaped itself, hiding everything beneath shadowed hard plastic with the exception of his light blue eyes, which looked to be part of the plastic itself.

Everyone's mouths dropped, not expecting such a radical change to happen. Granted, he was known as Tupperware in Coon and Friends, but he seriously changed to look like he was made of Tupperware parts? It didn't make sense to them…

After a few minutes of utter silence, Clyde said with a raised eyebrow, "What the fuck?"

"You took the words right outta my mouth," Token commented. His voice had dropped ever so slightly and sounded like he was talking into a plastic Tupperware container, just like when he was a kid. But that wasn't what really freaked everyone out; it was the fact that he didn't have a visible mouth to move as he spoke.

"Dude!" Kyle exclaimed. "Seriously, this is some freaky shit!"

Stan nodded in agreement. Kenny stepped forward hesitantly and poked at one of Tupperware's arms with one finger, finding it actually being Tupperware. "Whoa dude," he breathed out.

Tupperware shuddered. "Dude that felt weird…"

Kenny jumped back at the words. "You **felt** that?"

Tupperware raised an eyebrow. "Of course. I can still feel physical sensations; it's just…weird…"

Clyde got an idea and stepped forward to give his boyfriend a kiss just to see what would happen, but stopped as a single painful pulse wracked his body. He crouched down, his chest against his knees and let out a scream as paper thin mosquito wings sprouted from his back, his nose elongated to resemble the nose and mouth of the flying insect he had named his superhero persona for, and his eyes widened and resembled the red checkered eyes of a fly.

When the pain finally past, he slowly stood, stumbling a bit at first since he wasn't used to the sudden distribution of his weight, and looked at everyone's shocked faces. That was a more unexpected than Token's change. "What?" He gasped at the sound of his voice, nasal-y just like when he pretended to be Mosquito as a child. "What the hell's happened to me?"

"And me?" Tupperware demanded.

"Timmy!" Timmy's voice echoed the same as Stan's had earlier when he had changed into Tool Shed, catching everyone's attention. Timmy had changed into a full-sized Iron Maiden that looked like something straight out of a Renaissance era torture chamber, looking rusted and over-used yet still with the promise a of slow, painful death surrounding it.

Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Clyde, and Token all backed off a few steps at seeing what Timmy had transformed into. His quiet transformation had come as more of a shock than Clyde and Token's. How had no one noticed Timmy changing into Iron Maiden anyway? It seemed like something that would be just a **bit** hard to miss!

"Wow," Kenny said with awe heavy in his voice. He'd become interested in Renaissance era torture devices recently, so actually seeing an Iron Maiden standing directly in front of him without it being behind ropes in a museum so that no one could get close was great, (even if it was really just his friend transformed)!

"This is amazing!" Stan said excitedly. "I wouldn't have thought that we'd **all** really be able to change like this! You know, I really gotta give the fat ass credit! Him and Butters built an amazing machine!"

Kenny flinched at the mention of his lost blonde, but no one seemed to notice. For that he was glad, he didn't want to destroy the atmosphere that had finally lightened up around the room. Instead, Kyle had smiled widely and agreed with what his boyfriend had said. Kenny just smiled and nodded with the exchanged words of awe between all of his friends, all seeming impressed that Cartman could even **think** of such an amazing machine to build. He talked very little about it though, regardless of his own sense of awe, his mind lost on thoughts of Butters now. He barely even noticed when Kyle told Clyde, Token, and Timmy how to transform back and when they did. He realized as they parted ways to go back to their homes that what he needed to do was to go home and either cry or light up a joint just so he could forget about the day.

–_The Next Day; 1200 Hours–_

The group of just born superheroes strolled down the sidewalk of South Park's main street talking amongst themselves about Cartman's possible attack later that day. The few people out walking around made a point to avoid them by actually swerving around to the other side of the street - no one trusted a group of teens skipping school and just walking around.

"So, where would he stage an attack like this?" Stan asked with a thoughtful tone.

"That's a good question," Token commented. "Where did you see it happening Kenny?"

Kenny crossed his arms over his chest as he continued walking; being the unspoken leader of the group he was leading the group down the street towards the northern end of town. "I don't know the specific place but it **was** near the northern end of town."

Everyone nodded and continued talking, this time just about normal stuff. Grades, homework, and plans for the upcoming weekend, it was almost like nothing had changed, like they were all still normal teenagers living normal lives. They could've easily forgotten about the fact that just yesterday they each had their souls awakened to change into the superhero personas they had created when they were nine-years-old had it not been for the fact that each and every one of them **felt** the difference inside of them, either physically or spiritually.

As they were walking past a short alley that opened up to the next street over, Kyle looked over and stopped. "What's that over there?" He pointed over at where a large group of people were gathered around something.

The rest of the group looked over at the people as well; all just as confused as the redhead at why there were that many people in the area. It was rare that that many people gathered in a single area unless something was going on. Kenny took a single step towards the crowd before Stan grabbed onto his shoulder, stopping him.

Kenny looked back at his friend annoyingly. "What?"

"We're supposed to be looking for Cartman and Butters, remember?"

"Of course I remember," the blonde shrugged his shoulder from Stan's grip, "that's why we need to go check it out. It could be Cartman."

Clyde nodded. "Kenny has a point. The fat ass likes to attract attention."

Kyle and Token nodded. Ever since they were children Cartman had been an attention whore, it wouldn't be a surprise if he was the reason there were a bunch of people gathered in a single area. Still, if Cartman were going to attack South Park, would he **really** want to attract attention to himself? He wouldn't be that stupid, would he?

Everyone turned their attention back to where the people had gathered when a blinding green flash of light appeared suddenly. The entire group of people all hit their knees and bent over into a formal bow all at the same time. In the center of the mass, laughing was The Coon with Professor Chaos standing next to him pointing what looked like a ray gun in front of him at the bowing people.

"I told you assholes you'd bow to me," The Coon laughed.

Professor Chaos' eyes swept the area in front of him and his boyfriend, spotting where Kenny, Stan, Kyle, Clyde, Token, and Timmy were standing looking at the two with surprise. It was clear they hadn't been expecting that at all. The blonde glanced over at The Coon. "Coon."

"What?" The Coon looked annoyingly over at Professor Chaos. He hated being interrupted when he was on a roll with one of his rants.

Professor Chaos pointed over to their former friends. "Look who isn't bowing down to you master."

The Coon smirked. "Get them," he shot a quick playful glare at Professor Chaos, "and don't miss. You'll regret it."

He nodded and pointed the ray gun at the group on the other end of the alley. _Sorry Kenny, but I have to…_ He aimed carefully and smoothly pulled the trigger.


	6. Proving Our Worth

"_And they say that a hero can save us/I'm not gonna stand here and wait/I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles/Watch as we all fly away"_

–Nickelback – _"Hero"_

…

"Move!" Kenny screamed as he shoved Stan and Kyle to one side and Clyde, Token, and Timmy dodge to the other side. The blinding green ray flew past them, instead hitting a passing adult who immediately turned towards The Coon and Professor Chaos to bow formally like the others.

"Holy shit," Kyle sighed out, "that was close."

Stan nodded. "It was." He looked over at Kenny as the blonde began climbing a locked off metal ladder leading to the roof of the mom n' pop restaurant they were hiding behind. "What're you doing Kenny?"

"Mysterion," he said evenly and then looked back at where Stan and Kyle were still standing. "Kyle, Stan, you need to change into Human Kite and Tool Shed **now**!" He pointed over at Clyde, Token, and Timmy. "Tell them to change also."

"Wait, Ken–Mysterion, why?" Kyle asked with concern. "This couldn't get too bad, could it?"

Mysterion sent a glare at his redheaded friend. "Just do it! Trust me on this, both of you! I need you to meet me on the roof when you've changed into Human Kite. Tool Shed, you, Iron Maiden, and Tupperware attack from the ground. Mosquito can attack from the air." He turned and continued climbing up the ladder.

"Tool Shed?" Kyle raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?" Tool Shed's voice echoed softly next to Kyle's ear, causing the redhead's face to turn the color of his hair.

Kyle looked back at his boyfriend and sighed deeply. "That was a quick transformation…"

"Of course. It needs to be." Tool Shed released Kyle. "Hurry and change into Human Kite, Mysterion needs our help." He turned and darted across the opening of the alley, barely avoiding getting hit by another blast of green.

Kyle sighed and stripped his jacket and t-shirt off, not wanting to have to explain to his mother why yet **another** jacket and shirt combination had been torn to shreds in the back - he had to make up an excuse for the last time. Just before he slipped his eyes closed to allow the kite to come from his back, he pulled his hair back into a tight bun just in case the wind decided to play against him. Once the jet black kite with bone white poles came from his back and he was levitating in the air, Human Kite summoned a soft wind to help him fly up to the roof of the building. He landed next to Mysterion near the edge of the roof and glanced down at where The Coon and Professor Chaos were still standing.

"What's your plan?" Human Kite murmured to his friend.

"Full assault once everyone's in place," Mysterion replied. He looked over in time to see Mosquito quietly land on the roof on other side of the alley. "That's it," he ran off the edge of the building with his fist engulfed in flames, aiming for The Coon's head as he fell, "now!"

Hearing the voice above his head, The Coon looked up and dodged backwards just in time for the flaming fist to graze right past him and into the pavement instead. Professor Chaos was thrown back a bit by the small shockwave the impact let off, but he caught himself and stumbled for his balance for only a few moments.

Human Kite ran for the edge of the building and then stopped as the same painful sensation from before ran through his arms and legs. "What the hell?" He let out a short scream as the bones of his arms and legs forced him to completely straighten out and rose from beneath his skin to expand the kite on his back - which unfortunately tore apart his pants and boxers. "Fucking weak! I'm nak–huh?" A pair of jeans appeared around his waist and legs as a tight grey spandex long-sleeved shirt appeared around his torso - both were so tight they left little to the imagination. "This raises more questions," he muttered.

"Kite," Mosquito called from his new position in the air, "come on!"

"Uh…yeah!" A gust of wind blew Human Kite into the air towards where Professor Chaos was standing.

The blonde villain had swapped out the ray gun for a silver handgun, and seeing this, Human Kite swooped in closer to attack with Mosquito. But when Professor Chaos pulled the trigger, instead of a bullet exploding from the barrel of the gun, a ball of electricity flew towards Human Kite. He pointed the gun at Mosquito and pulled the trigger again.

The electrical ball moved towards both flying heroes faster than they could dodge it; just as they both registered what it was, it collided which them and sent them crashing to the pavement. Professor Chaos stepped towards Human Kite and Mosquito with every intention of killing them with one more blast each.

"Kite!" Tool Shed screamed. He held out one arm towards the hardware store and summoned an electric nail gun into his hand. The moment it touched his palm, he closed his fingers around it and pointed it at Professor Chaos. He held the trigger down and willed nail after nail to shoot from the power tool at Professor Chaos, who dropped his weapon as he quickly darted out of the way of each nail*.

Nail gun still in hand, Tool Shed ran over to Human Kite and dropped to one knee next to him. "Are you alright?"

The kite shrunk back to its normal size against Human Kite's back as he sat up. He nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." He looked over at Mosquito. "You okay dude?"

Mosquito groaned and slowly sat up rubbing his head. "That little shit's gonna pay for this!" He moved into a crouch and launched himself into the air towards Professor Chaos, where Iron Maiden was already attacking the blonde with metal spikes that shot from his hollow eyes.

"Yeah, he's fine," Tool Shed commented. He helped Human Kite to his feet in time for Mysterion to be thrown into them, sending them tumbling back to the ground.

"Dammit," Mysterion cursed as he leapt back to his feet. He sent a glare and another fireball at The Coon in time to meet with what looked like green glowing leftover Tupperware chucked at him.

The two projectiles collided and caused the leftover to explode into The Coon's face, sending him flying back, (it unfortunately also left a rotten smell in the air that usually accompanied week old tuna fish). The half-raccoon villain coughed and brushed off ashes and rotted food with a loud curse. "This fucking smells!" The brunette yelled. "Godammit!"

"Fine," Human Kite stood with Tool Shed and through a blast of air at The Coon, "I'll get rid of the stench." The Coon flew back into a building and sunk to his knees in severe pain - at least the smell was gone.

"Fuck," he groaned. Slowly he stood with help from the brick wall he'd been slammed up against. He sent a glare over at the redhead who attacked him. "Asshole!"

Human Kite crossed his arms over his chest. "What'd you expect?"

Scowling, The Coon pointed one clawed finger up in the air. "Well guess what dick hole…?" He smirked as a portal of swirling crimson red and black opened in the sky. It caught the attention of everyone around; Professor Chaos, Mosquito, Tupperware, and Iron Maiden quit fighting to look at it. "You're about to re-meet something you all met a long time ago."

Professor Chaos' eyes widened significantly. He ran forward and tackled The Coon to ground, closing portal before anything could come out. "You can't do that! It doesn't matter what'll come on, it'll kill everything in sight!"

"Then what are we gonna do about those assholes?"

The blonde sighed and pulled another silver handgun from a deep pocket in his cape. He pointed it at each of the heroes and pulled the trigger. Electric balls hit each one of them, knocking all but Tool Shed to the ground; actually he had caught the electric ball. Professor Chaos' eyes narrowed at the sight of the black-haired teen with sparking orange eyes still standing and holding the ball of pure electricity. Why was he still standing? Or really, how? He should've been flat on his back like the others. Besides that, how'd he catch it?

Tool Shed smirked and looked at the electric ball in his hand as it spun gracefully. _It looks like something from an anime… Cool._ He glanced back over at where The Coon and Professor Chaos were standing with his smirk still in place and smoothly drew his arm back and threw the electric ball back at them.

"Shit!" The Coon hooked his claws into Professor Chaos' cape and pulled him back so that they could avoid the ball. He sighed in relief when the blonde's forehead was only grazed, barely even bleeding. He knew that there would be no one he could succeed as a villain without him; Professor Chaos **was** the person who built all of their weapons and technology after all.

"Nice dodge," Tool Shed chuckled, "fat ass."

The Coon's teeth ground together, he forced Professor Chaos to step in front of him, not caring that blood was dripping down into the blonde's right eye. "Take care of that son-of-a-bitch!"

Professor Chaos nodded and, regardless of the fact that his right eye was blinded by blood and that he was in pain, pulled a jet black handgun from another pocket in his cape. This time when he pulled the trigger though, a water ball launched at Tool Shed, who laughed until it hit him. It had the same effect of someone getting electrocuted; he screamed and then collapsed to the ground with the others.

Professor Chaos slid the gun back into his cape and wiped the blood from his eye. That cut was really starting to cause him a lot of pain. When The Coon looked at him funny, Professor Chaos said, "It was just a guess. But I figured it'd have the same effect of dropping a hairdryer in a bathtub."

The Coon chuckled and licked some of the blood from Professor Chaos' cheek. "Good job bitch, you'll get a reward when we get back." He stalked over to the group of unconscious superheroes. "Now what to do with all of you…?"

Slowly Human Kite opened his eyes after finally somewhat recovering from the electric shock from a few minutes before. The first thing he saw was Tool Shed's drenched, unconscious face next to his. His eyes widened. "Tool Shed?" He muttered as his arm moved so that his hand could cup his boyfriend's face, but before he could reach Tool Shed's face, The Coon grabbed onto his neck and lifted Human Kite up to be just in front of his face.

The Coon smirked. "Well well, I guess you're not as weak as you look, Human **Kike**."

Human Kite ground his teeth together as his vision literally turned red. "**Fuck you**!" Red lasers shot from his eyes, something The Coon was barely able to avoid, it burned the flesh on his cheek severely.

The brunette dropped Human Kite to the ground as his hand flew to his burned, bleeding cheek. "What the fuck was that?" He took his hand away from his cheek to look at the blood his palm had captured. "Godammit!"

"Wait!" Professor Chaos grabbed The Coon's shoulder to stop him from grabbing Human Kite again when he noticed the redhead's eyes were wide and still glowing deep red. He could fire off another laser at any moment. "We should retreat for now."

"Why?" The Coon demanded. "We've got them where we want them!"

Professor Chaos shook his head. "Trust me, save the end for another day."

The Coon ground his teeth together since he was annoyed with retreating, but just nodded and backed off a few steps with Professor Chaos.

Human Kite's eyelids became heavy and he blinked slowly, enough time for the two villains to disappear. Noticing they were gone, he allowed the kite to sink back into his back and he collapsed back expecting to hit the ground. Instead, he fell back into one of Mysterion's arms. He looked groggily up at the tall blonde. "M-Mysterion?" When did he become conscious again?

Mysterion hadn't heard his friend's words, he was staring over at where Professor Chaos had been standing just a moment ago. He'd woken up in time to see his ex and The Coon disappeared in a flash of light from a small flash bomb Professor Chaos had produced from a pocket in his cape. A single tear ran down Mysterion's face. He had been hoping to defeat The Coon and take back Professor Chaos today, even if it meant by force. Well, there was always next time he supposed.


	7. Show That You're Sorry

_Could you people remind me to __**never**__ stay in Springville - AKA: one of Lawrence County Indiana's BFE locations - overnight when massive storms are expected? I got the hell scared outta me Friday night! ._

_On a separate note, what is the title of the song(s) used for the Battlefield 3 game trailer? (The one with the game footage in it.)_

…

It only took maybe ten minutes before everyone, with the exception of Tool Shed, was awake and moving around again. They were all sore from the hit with the electric ball and had all changed back to their normal selves. Kyle was sitting on the ground next to Stan huddled in Kenny's oversized parka since, for some reason, his clothes disappeared whenever he changed back from Human Kite; Kenny was wearing Kyle's jacket in return. Clyde and Token were standing next to Timmy was watching Kenny stare at the ground, holding hands.

Kyle looked over at his still unconscious boyfriend and smoothly brushed a few strands of Stan's black hair from his face. "We're no good," he muttered.

At the sound of his friend's voice, Kenny looked over at the redhead. No good? Granted, they didn't exactly win their fight with The Coon and Professor Chaos, hell they didn't even get close to winning and even their most effective hero, Tool Shed, had been defeated, but they weren't "no good." Kenny shook his head. "We're not 'no good' Kyle."

Kyle looked up at the blonde confusingly. "What're you talking about? We were completely ineffective." He looked back over at Stan as he groaned and began to stir. "We're not heroes, we're nothing."

Kenny shook his head and said as Stan slowly opened his eyes and sat up, "We can't doubt we're heroes regardless of our failures."

"Why shouldn't we?"

"Because we can become better."

Clyde's eyes narrowed. Better? How could they become better? It didn't make sense. "How can we be heroes if we can't even save ourselves?"

Kenny sent a glare at the brunette. "If you wanna give up so easily Clyde, then go ahead, but I'm not letting this one loss get to me. I want to be a hero." _For Butters._ He looked at everyone around him, all giving him the same look of realization, Stan included. "This was our first and only fight **as** heroes, so who's to say that we'll always fail…? Besides," he gestured to people rising from their formal bow confusingly, "we did save these people."

Stan rubbed his head and sat cross-legged next to Kyle. He looked around at the people giving them all strange looks. It was true; they'd saved the people from The Coon and Professor Chaos regardless of the fact that they'd been defeated in the end. He nodded. "Kenny's right," he stood and helped Kyle to his feet as well, "we can't just give up. I want to be a hero too."

Kyle grabbed onto his boyfriend's jacket sleeve. "I can't just let Stan go off by himself. Besides, we've already determined he'd be useless on rainy days." He smiled up at noirette. "I'm in too."

"Timmy!" Timmy yelled enthusiastically. It was clear he was in as well.

Token nodded and raised him and Clyde's hands. "I don't care what Clyde thinks, but both of us are with you guys. We **will** become better, I just know it!"

Clyde sighed and shook his head. He didn't want to be part of anything having to deal with the other heroes, but if Token was going, he was too just to make sure that his ebony lover was safe. "Fine, whatever."

Kenny smiled. It was great that he'd managed to change everyone's mind about their failure. It was true, they'd have more failures in the future, that was inevitable, but if they could just win the next few, he knew that their morale would shoot up. He could only hope that by the next time they faced The Coon and Professor Chaos, they'd be prepared and win.

…_Friday: 1600 Hours_…

Kenny plopped down on the couch in his family's living room with a heavy sigh. No one was home again. His parents were at presumably at the bar getting drunk and his brother was off somewhere shagging his girlfriend. Nothing had changed in the McCormick household since Wednesday when him and his friends had saved a small group of people - all of whom did thank them when they realized what had just happened. Kenny even still smoked weed when he got really bored, and this was one of those moments.

He reached between the seat cushions for the small baggy of what was left of the weed he had "cleverly" hidden from his parents. As he was preparing the paper so he could roll himself a joint, his cell phone sounded off with Rob Zombie's _"Dragula."_ He reached into the pocket of his parka with a sigh and looked at the screen of his phone, it was Kyle.

He slid his phone open and pressed it to his ear. "What's up?"

"_Hey, the mayor wants us up at her office,"_ Kyle said without a completely confused tone.

Kenny raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"_I have no idea. Stan, Clyde, Token, and Timmy are gonna meet us there. I'm about to leave. You want me to just wait for you here so we can walk there together?"_

He sighed and put his weed and paper back where he had stashed it. "Yeah, if it's not too much trouble."

Kyle chuckled. _"Nah, no trouble. I'll just wait out in front of my house for you."_

"Alright dude," Kenny stood and walked back out of the front door of his house, "I'll see ya in a minute." He slid his cell phone shut and walked down the road toward the redhead's house.

The mayor wanted an audience with them, huh? That was nerve-wracking considering the only time they'd been summoned to the mayor's office was whenever they'd royally fucked up. They hadn't done anything bad recently though, had they? Kenny didn't **think** that fighting the villains was a bad thing, so she probably wanted to see them for some other reason. At least, that's what he hoped.

"Hey there Kyle," Kenny greeted as he approached his friend.

Kyle smiled and stepped into place next to the blonde as he kept walking towards city hall. "Hey." He sniffed, detecting the faintest scent of pot. "Did I call before or after you rolled a joint?"

Kenny chuckled and wrapped an arm around Kyle's waist to pull him close. "Can't fool you. But I was about to, I had everything ready to make a joint and then you called."

The redhead sighed. "You know Stan hates when you do this," he muttered.

He chuckled again and blew into Kyle's ear, making him turn bright red. "Who's stopping me?" He whispered.

"S-Shouldn't you feel bad about hitting on me when you have But…ters…?" He looked back at Kenny's face when he stopped, forcing Kyle to stop also. At seeing the pain suddenly etched there, he felt awful to even bringing it up. He turned to his friend when he noticed the tears glazing his eyes. "Dude, I'm sorry! I forgot! Please don't cry!"

Kenny's lips tightened into a straight line. He knew Kyle forgot about the situation concerning Butters, hell Kenny had even allowed himself to forget, but he didn't think that was any excuse. He was still in pain, he still felt empty and cheated and low, his heart still beat painfully in his chest at the mention of Butters or his other self, Professor Chaos. He hated Kyle in that moment for bringing up his ex-boyfriend, and though he could tell his friend was genuinely sorry, he didn't want to hear it. He pushed Kyle away.

"You know what dude, I'm not in the mood for this shit right now," Kenny said from between ground teeth.

"Dude, please forgive me," Kyle nearly begged, "I really did forget for a moment! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Kenny's blue eyes swooped over to lock with the redhead's green ones as a single tear fell down his face. "Are you really that sorry?"

"Of course I am."

He turned and stepped towards Kyle as he reached out to slide one hand around the back of his neck so he could lock his friend where he was standing. "Are you willing to show it?"

Kyle turned light red again. "Well, w-what were you thinking?"

Kenny swooped in close and forced his tongue into Kyle's mouth, making him freeze instantly. He couldn't believe Kenny's tongue was down his throat! What was he thinking? What would someone think if they walked by and saw the scene? Everyone knew Stan and Kyle were together, so seeing him with someone else's tongue in his mouth would cause nothing but rumors to float around.

Knowing that, Kyle began pushing at Kenny's chest until he finally released his lips. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing? I'm with Stan now! We can't just hook up anymore!"

Kenny smirked and licked his lips. Kyle tasted better than he remembered. "I thought you said you were sorry…?"

"Well," Kyle muttered as his face became an even brighter red, "I am," he gasped slightly as Kenny nipped at his throat, "but we seriously can't do this. Let go of me…!"

Not caring in the least who saw, Kenny snaked his other hand down the front of Kyle's jeans to rub him as he nipped and ran his tongue along he redhead's neck and shoulder. Kyle grabbed onto the shoulders of his blonde friend and kept trying to weakly push him away. No one was walking around where they currently were, so there was little chance of this reaching Stan's ears but Kyle hated risking it. He really wanted Kenny off of him. **Now**!

"K-Kenny," Kyle groaned as his fingers gripped onto the shoulders of Kenny's parka, "stop. Please…"

"Mmm," Kenny moaned. He lapped at a fresh bite mark he'd put on the crook of his friend's shoulder as he reached into Kyle's boxers to stroke him. "You don't want me to."

"Yes I do! Please, **please** stop!" Kyle really was enjoying it and Kenny was right, he didn't want him to stop, but the pain in his heart was too heavy. He knew if he let Kenny continued that things would eventually lead to sex in an alley nearby, and he just couldn't do that to Stan. "I'm begging you Kenny," he whimpered, "as a friend, stop."

Sighing, Kenny slid his hand out of Kyle's pants and released him. He backed off a few steps and took in the damage he'd caused to his friend's neck. Bite marks covered in saliva completely dominated the redhead's throat and shoulders. Kenny suddenly felt bad, he had tried to force himself on Kyle, tried to make Kyle cheat on Stan. Their relationship was perfect and Kenny had tried to ruin it by forcing himself on his friend. What was he thinking? And what would Stan say when he saw the bite marks? That entire situation just wasn't a good one.

Kenny sighed quietly and turned his eyes off to the side. "Sorry dude…"

At seeing his friend's tortured face, Kyle sighed too. "It's okay Kenny," he hooked his arm around Kenny's and leaned against him, "let's just go to city hall."

Kenny nodded and continued walking towards city hall with his friend leaning against his shoulder. He knew that there was going to be a lot of explaining the two were going to have to do to Stan when they arrived, and he knew that he would take all of the blame. Stan might hate him for a while, but everyone knew it was just in his nature, eventually he'd be forgiven. Well, he hoped so.


	8. Seduction

Stan turned from where he was talking with Clyde, Token, and Timmy when they looked behind him as Kenny and Kyle walked up to the four teens. Kyle was still leaning against Kenny until they reached where he could clearly see his boyfriend sending the blonde next to him a glare. Both hoped that the bite marks had faded slightly but knew better, if anything, they'd be darker like bruises. And they both realized this was the case when Stan's eyes fell onto Kyle's neck and then widened with rage.

The noirette took two steps forward and grabbed onto his boyfriend's arm to yank him away from Kenny. He sent a glare at the blonde that should've killed him, brought him back, and then killed him again, but luckily didn't. After a moment, he turned his eyes back to Kyle's neck to see just how many bite marks were there. "Fifteen," he growled as he glared at Kenny again, "fifteen fucking bite marks!" His arm whipped out and his fist connected with the blonde's cheek, sending him to the pavement.

"Stan," Kyle yelled as he grabbed onto Stan's arm, "stop!"

He ignored the redhead and continued screaming, "What makes you think you have any right to mark him like this?"

Slowly so that he could gauge Stan reaction, Kenny stood back up. "I didn't have any right," he said evenly. "I just got a little mad when he brought up Butters and made a mistake." He glanced at Kyle a moment before turning his eyes back to the angered teen. "I wanted to 'punish' him for it, and ended up…well, I'm sure you can imagine. If you want a bright side to this, then it'll please you to know Kyle fought me the entire time. He didn't like it."

Kyle's eyes widened a bit. Why would Kenny say that? It wasn't going to help him at all, just make him out to be some disturbed rapist the way he was wording it. He could understand trying to make it seem like he really had no say, which he didn't, but Stan was just going to be pissed off either way.

Stan broke his arm from Kyle's grip to grab onto the neck of Kenny's parka and shove him back to the ground with his legs straddling the blonde's torso. "You son-of-a-bitch!"

Kenny ground his teeth together angrily, not because he hit his head **again** but because he hated that this side of Stan was making him horny since it was all wanted when they would hook up. "Get off of me," he snapped.

"You raped him," Stan's hand curled into a fist and he drew it back, "you motherfucker!"

"No, stop!" Kyle caught Stan's fist, causing the taller boy look back at him. "That's not what happened."

"Then what is he–"

"Well, this is just **perfect**," the mayor's voice rang from the open doors of city hall, "our heroes are fighting amongst each other."

Everyone looked over at the mayor - her short hair, once light blue, was now bright silver, her pant suit was now standard black to match the ones her aides were wearing - she looked pissed. No one could blame her though. Chances were that she'd been told about these awesome, cooperative superheroes, found out their identities, and had expected them to seriously cooperate since they're friends. Seeing Stan trying to punch in Kenny's face wasn't a good impression.

"Mayor? Sorry you had to see that." Stan shot to his feet and brushed his jeans off. Clyde and Token both sighed at their friend. It was amazing how quickly his attitude could change.

Kyle helped Kenny to his feet and then backed up two steps to stand next to his boyfriend. The blonde turned to the mayor and brushed his parka and sweatpants off. The back of his head was pounding, he was sure there was a knot there, but he couldn't worry about that now. He walked forward and held out his hand. "Yes, we're all sorry about that. It's a personal thing that you shouldn't have seen." He shook her hand. "I'm Kenny McCormick."

She smiled and shook his hand in return. "Mysterion, right?"

His eyes widened and he took a step back in surprise. She knew? "How'd you find out?"

"Well, you guys didn't exactly have masks on from what I heard." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyone who knew you boys was able to identify you, plus the fact that your names haven't changed since you were annoying children playing superhero."

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Thanks. Anyway, don't you think we should be in your office? It'd be safer."

The mayor looked at everyone - Stan had his arm hooked possessively around Kyle's waist, Clyde and Token were holding hands and listening closely to what Kenny and the mayor said, and Timmy looked excited and zoned out - and then nodded. "Fine," she turned and gestured to the open double doors of city hall, "let's go in."

Before the group of people could even step forward towards the building, a form fell from the sky and crashed into the ground in front of the three steps leading up to the entrance. When everyone else just stood where they were in shock, Kyle ran forward to see if the person was okay, only stopping when he was standing in front of the winged figure. It was a tall, shirtless pale man with gleaming, toned muscles, shaggy black hair, and a pair of full-sized black fallen angel's wings coming from between his shoulder blades. Around his neck was a black inverted cross and his legs were clad in black jeans. He was bare-foot.

The fallen angel's deep red eyes looked between everyone's faces, taking in each familiar face as he came to it, before finally locking eyes with the redhead in front of him. He smiled just slightly. "Kyle. It's good to see you again."

At the sound of his name, Kyle snapped back into reality. Who was this guy? How did he know his name? "Who…?" He took a half-step back as one of the angel's hands rose up to brush his cheek.

"You knew me a long time ago," he got close to Kyle's face, "we were only children then. I wonder something though…"

Kyle turned bright red; Stan was stomping towards the two. He wasn't going to let some random guy touch **his** Jew! Though he knew he didn't want to, Kyle leaned just slightly forward. "W-What?"

"Can you resist Seduction?" He breathed as he closed the gap between their lips and quickly kissed Kyle passionately.

Everyone felt goosebumps rise on their arms as the fallen angel kissed the redhead. Stan had stopped in his tracks and was staring wide-mouthed at the scene in front of him. What the hell? Seduction? What did **that** mean? And **why** was he kissing his boyfriend? The guy was an angel, right? Shouldn't he **know** that Kyle was with Stan?

Once the angel released Kyle, Stan found his voice again: "Hey you son-of-a-bitch, get your hands off of him!"

At hearing his boyfriend's words, Kyle wanted to back away but he couldn't. His heart was pounding in his chest, his mouth was watering, his eyes were glazed over with lust, and every part of him felt hot. Why was he feeling like this towards a complete stranger? They hadn't even shared a full blown make-out session, it was just a kiss. So…why? It even took Stan some romancing to get him in the mood, but all this guy had to was…it didn't make sense!

But suddenly those thoughts left Kyle's mind as quickly as they had arrived. He didn't care about any of that; he just wanted the angel to take him right there on the spot. He leaned against the angel's bare chest and planted a wet kiss there. "Damien," he groaned, "please…"

Damien smirked and wrapped one arm tight around Kyle's torso. "You couldn't resist. That's good to know." He floated gracefully up just slightly into the air.

"Hey! Let him go!" Stan ran and jumped to grab Kyle's ankle as Damien flew higher in the air. "Fuck," he growled as he landed back on the ground.

"Oh yeah," Damien looked down at Stan and showed him his middle finger, "that's from The Coon." He looked at Kenny. "He said to tell you, Mysterion, that he can't wait to see you have to fight Professor Chaos."

Kenny's eyes narrowed and his teeth ground together. "Tell The Coon that he can kiss the palest part of my ass! Now put my friend down!"

Damien smirked and intentionally let a low moan pass his lips as Kyle gently nipped and sucked at his neck. "I'll deliver the message, but," he tilted Kyle's head up to look in his eyes, "I need to take care of this one before I return him." He shoved his tongue into the redhead's mouth as his wings surrounded him and a quick burst of wind blew them north.

"Kyle!" Stan screamed. He watched with wide eyes as his boyfriend was carried away by the fallen angel and the wind.

…

_Sorry this is kind of short, but I'm getting tired and I have class in the morning. :/ The next chapter will be longer, I promise._


	9. The Fallen Angel's Love

"To be honest," the mayor said from behind her desk, "that kidnapping couldn't have come at a more opportune moment."

"Opportune?" Stan yelled as his hands slammed down on the dark wood desk. "My boyfriend gets kidnapped and it's 'opportune?'"

Kenny grabbed onto Stan's shoulder and gently pulled him back to join Clyde and Token. He didn't need someone talking to the mayor who was going to be yelling and screaming the entire time. "Sorry about that. Now, why do you say Kyle's kidnapping is 'opportune?'"

"Well Mysterion," she ignored when Kenny muttered that he wasn't Mysterion right then, "it's because I asked you all here so I could give you a mission to prove your abilities. And, to be honest, I didn't have anything good. The kidnapping is perfect."

He shrugged and muttered, "If you say so."

Clyde stepped forward. "So, you want us to go rescue Kyle as some sort of 'test?'"

She nodded. "Actually, yes."

"Doesn't that seem a little cruel?" Token asked. He usually wouldn't have cared, but he really didn't want to take advantage of a situation like this if he didn't have to.

The mayor shrugged. She didn't care. "Cruel or not, all heroes need a test to prove they're worthy of being protectors. This is yours."

Kenny sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Behind him, he could feel the anger radiating off of Stan, and he couldn't blame him. True, they were going to rescue Kyle anyway, but playing it off as some kind of cheap "hero test" wasn't going the best route for the situation. "Well, considering we're going to rescue him regardless, then fine." He turned to face everyone. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to Mysterion's: "Let's go."

Everyone nodded and followed Mysterion out of city hall, making their own transitions as they walked. Stan's eyes became glazed over in the orange again and let off sparks; Clyde transformed easily into Mosquito as Timmy changed into Iron Maiden and Token into Tupperware just as easily. The group ignored the weird looks they were getting from everyone as they exited the building. Outside, Mysterion turned to Mosquito and Tupperware.

"Mosquito, could you carry him?"

Mosquito looked over at his lover and then nodded at Mysterion. "More than likely, but no one else."

"Good." The blonde pointed north, the direction Damien had flown off with Kyle. "You two go ahead. Tool Shed, Iron Maiden, and I will follow from the ground."

Mosquito nodded and grabbed onto Tupperware. Easily, his wings beat at a pace so rapid no one could see them and carried them into the air. Within a moment, they were flying off towards the north. Mysterion watched as they went. He'd be damned if they didn't get Kyle back, and he hoped it was before Damien could really fuck him but doubted that would be the case. He looked back at Tool Shed, who stomped forward past him heading north with Iron Maiden following him.

Mysterion pulled up the hood of his parka and tightened the strings so that his mouth would be covered like it had when he was a child before running to catch up with his friends. "So," he began, his voice slightly muffled, "were you just planning on running into Damien's home and demanding he give Kyle back?"

Tool Shed shot Mysterion a dirty look. "What else am I supposed to do? You know, other than kill the bastard…?"

"We need a plan or we won't succeed. We could even put Kyle in danger without a plan. That's why I sent Mosquito and Tupperware ahead, so they can tell us what to expect and where to go."

"I don't need a fucking plan! I'm going to save him from that son-of-a-bitch angel with simple brute force!"

Mysterion rolled his eyes and grabbed onto Tool Shed's shoulder, stopping him. "That's not gonna work. Listen to me. You, me, and Iron Maiden need to come up with a plan - it can involve brute force if you want, but we need something to go on."

"Oh, like **what**?" Tool Shed demanded. "While we're sitting here discussing this bullshit, Damien could be fucking Kyle!"

"I understand that but just calm down. Look, everyone knows that him and Pip have been together for a few months now, and they've been more faithful to each other than any other couple in town. Something must've happened that has forced Damien to do this."

"He's the son of Satan! Is that not a good enough reason?"

"No, it's not. Besides that, he's never had those wings before. **And** he's apparently working for The Coon. Something's happened involving Pip, I know it, and Damien's doing as he's told to get him back or keep him safe."

Tool Shed rolled his eyes. "Whatever you wanna believe is fine Mysterion, but I **highly** doubt that's the case. Now I'm going to find wherever Damien took Kyle and I'm going to rescue him, without your help." He turned and began to run up the streets to the northern end of town.

Mysterion sighed and looked at Iron Maiden. "We need to follow him to make sure he doesn't do anything too reckless."

"Timmy," Iron Maiden said as an intended "yes."

Mysterion took off running as Iron Maiden glided over the streets behind him. They were going as fast as they could trying to catch Tool Shed, but the noirette was faster than them since he was the star quarterback for the high school's varsity football team. He could easily outrun anyone he wanted to, and that made Mysterion curse under his breath as he continued running. The only one that could get Tool Shed to stop would be Kyle, (Human Kite), but wishing he was there would be pointless.

"Mysterion!" Tupperware called as him and Mosquito lowered to the ground in front of the blonde and Iron Maiden.

Mysterion stopped and immediately began panting, having almost completely lost his breath trying to chase down Tool Shed. "W," he gasped for breath, "What?"

"We found Damien at an abandoned cabin near the base of the mountain fifty miles north of town," Mosquito said quickly, "but we couldn't get close due to the guards around the place."

"Also," Tupperware added, "we saw The Coon and Professor Chaos leading a blonde away from the cabin in chains. The guy looked pretty bad."

Mysterion's eyes narrowed. "Pip."

Mosquito nodded. "That's what we thought too."

"Mosquito, you and Tupperware go ahead again and try to intercept Tool Shed - he ran ahead of us. Tell him to help you both rescue Pip from The Coon and Professor Chaos. I guarantee we can get Kyle back that way."

The brunette nodded again. "Okay." He grabbed onto Tupperware again and flew off to the north as fast as his wings would carry him.

Mysterion looked at Iron Maiden and nodded. "Let's go." He took off running again with Iron Maiden gliding right behind him.

…

_Finally out of town,_ Tool Shed thought as he kept running as fast as his legs would carry him. Being in football definitely had its advantages, like the fact that Mysterion and Iron Maiden hadn't been able to catch him as he ran. _I'll be there soon Kyle._

He broke through a patch of bushes set next to the start of a trail heading towards the base of a mountain and then immediately jumped backwards into the foliage when he saw The Coon and Professor Chaos walking down the trail leading someone bound in chains. He sat there quietly trying to examine the soft rounded face of the tormented blonde. Why did he look so familiar?

The Coon yawned and stretched his arms over his head. "I'm beat; let's get back to the base so I can take a nap."

Professor Chaos nodded. "Okay. Me and General Disarray will continue working on that new machine gun."

"Sounds good."

"Oh, um," the blonde in chains chimed in quietly in a beautiful British accent, "could I possibly be let go now?" He began shaking ever so slightly. "You already got Damien to seduce Human Kite, so **please** let me go back to him."

The Coon glared back at the blonde. "Shut up you British piece of crap."

Tool Shed's eyes widened when he realized who it was it the chains. _Pip? Wait…is Damien doing this because Pip's being held captive?_

Pip hung his head as much as he could considering the shackle around his neck and continued following The Coon and Professor Chaos down the trail. As they past, Tool Shed saw tears trailing down the Brit's face. Whether they were out of sorrow over being captured or over Damien having to fuck Kyle, he couldn't tell, but he suddenly had the urge to rescue Pip from the two villains.

Quietly, Tool Shed crawled forward out of the bush behind the trio and followed them just as quietly. Lucky for him, the shackles were electronic; he simply disabled them all at once and pulled Pip back into the woods. Before the blonde could register what was happening or The Coon and Professor Chaos could realize their captive was gone, Tool Shed grabbed onto Pip's wrist and began running through the woods parallel to the trail. He only stopped when they were a safe enough distance away from the two that had captured Pip.

The Brit sat down on a tree stump and looked at Tool Shed as he knelt in front of him confusingly. "S-Stan?" He panted, a mixture of surprise, unexpected exercise, and a lack of food caused him to lose his breath upon escape.

"Tool Shed. Pip, why were you with them?" He asked as his eyes narrowed a bit.

"The Coon wanted Damien on his side, so he kidnapped me for leverage. Oh," Pip shot to his feet and stumbled into Tool Shed as he stood too, "Damien has Kyle! He was told to sleep with him to give you incentive to do…something…but we were promised I'd go free if he went through with it. We have to get to them!"

The noirette grabbed Pip's shoulders. "Where are they?"

He pointed up the trail. "There's a cabin at the base of the mountain where I was being kept until a bit ago. They're there."

Tool Shed nodded and grabbed Pip's hand. "Let's go then." He ran onto the trail with Pip behind him as fast as the blonde could go.

Shortly after they got onto the trail, Tool Shed heard his name yelled from the sky. He slowed to a stop and looked up to see Mosquito and Tupperware fly down and land with them on the trail. He just saw them go overhead towards where he had left Mysterion and Iron Maiden not long ago, Mosquito really could fly fast.

"Move," Tool Shed demanded harshly, "we need to get to the cabin!"

"How'd you rescue Pip?" Tupperware asked with confusion lacing his voice.

"The shackles he was in were electronic. Easy to shut down. Now move!" He continued running, not caring that Pip was having trouble staying on his feet as they ran.

Behind them, Mosquito and Tupperware flew close. Mosquito got next to the two. "There are guards all around the cabin Tool Shed, you'll have no chance of getting near it."

Just then, the cabin and all the guards came into sight. The group of four went into the woods and hid behind the trees and foliage that lead into the clearing leading to the base of the mountain and the cabin. How had The Coon managed to employ that many people this quickly? He probably kidnapped more people these people cared about in order to get them on his side. Tool Shed was certain that was the case with the dark haired boy nearest the door of the cabin with the shimmering scaled skin of a snake, Craig Tucker. The Coon probably captured his boyfriend Tweek - this was confirmed as Craig set his shotgun aside and looked sadly yet angrily at the golden locket around his neck Tweek had bought him last month.

"Fuck," Tool Shed cursed under his breath. "What're we gonna do about them?"

"Well," Mosquito muttered, "I accidentally discovered I have an extra ability, though I'm not sure it'll be effective on this scale."

Tool Shed looked over at his friend. "What?"

"Well, remember when Cartman proved himself a dumbass and tried to fly off of his roof, hit his head, and then lied about having mind control?"

He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Uh…yeah…?"

"Well, watch this." Mosquito stepped through the bushes and - when all of the guards turned their attention to him and raised their guns - raised his arms out to his sides. A barely visible pulse of energy spread in front and around him, hitting all of the guards around the cabin. Every single person that had raised their gun at Mosquito lowered them again and just continued patrolling the area as if no one else was there. The brunette turned to where his friend were still standing. "I actually **do** have mind control."

"Dude," Tupperware laughed, "that's awesome!"

"It is." Tool Shed walked through the bushes with Pip and clapped Mosquito on the shoulder. "Thanks man." Without waiting for a response, he ran forward into the cabin. He released Pip's hand and looked back at him. "Which room? Do you know?"

Pip nodded and ran over to a door directly across from the open front door of the cabin. He threw the door open in time to see Kyle pulling down Damien's pants and begin to suck him through his boxers. "Damien!"

Damien looked over and suddenly had a never seen blush cross his face. "Pip?" He stepped away from Kyle, who was looking up at the fallen angel with begging eyes. He pulled the redhead to his feet and gently pushed him towards Tool Shed. "Just kiss him," he told the hero, "it'll end the spell."

Tool Shed nodded and crushed his lips into Kyle's. The lusted glaze left Kyle's eyes and he gripped onto his boyfriend's jacket. When their lips parted, Kyle raised his hand to cup Stan's cheek. "Stan…I'm so sorry. I…I couldn't control what I was doing."

Stan smiled and kissed Kyle again. "I forgive you babe."

Damien wrapped his arms around Pip and held him to his chest tight. "I'm so happy you're safe Pip."

Pip smiled and rested his hands on Damien's bare chest as he kissed his boyfriend's jaw. "We owe that to Stan, he saved me."

"Stan," Damien looked over and caught the other noirette's gaze, "thank you for rescuing Pip. And promise you that I wouldn't have even thought of seducing Kyle if Pip's safety wasn't on the line."

Stan nodded. "I understand. You'd do anything for him, and to be honest, I was going to kill you to get Kyle back."

"I wouldn't have expected anything less."

All four teens looked towards the direction of the open door when they heard an explosion and the light glow of a pillar of flame coming from the beginning of the trail near the highway leading into town.


	10. On Your Side

"_Nothing is true, and everything is permitted."_

–Assassin's Creed

…

…_A Few Minutes Earlier_…

While Tool Shed had been dragging Pip through the woods and towards the cabin Damien had taken Kyle to, Mysterion and Iron Maiden were racing for the northern edge of town. After what Mosquito and Tupperware had told them, they knew exactly where to go - an area of the mountain trail that was normally closed off at the beginning of fall until summer since conditions could quickly become less favorable for a hiker.

Mysterion was becoming more concerned the longer it took for Mosquito and Tupperware to retrieve Tool Shed and tell him of their plan. Surely he hadn't reached Damien yet, he wouldn't know where to go. Unfortunately, if he does reach Damien before word gets to him of their plan, things could get ugly and both Tool Shed and Kyle could easily lose their lives to the anti-Christ. Him and Iron Maiden just needed to get there before that could happen.

He looked back at the iron maiden gliding along beside him. "You think you go any faster?"

"Timmy!" He responded with an implied "yes."

"Okay, then let's go!" Mysterion pushed his legs to the absolute limit, feeling a deep burn that he really needed to work out more often than he did.

The two ran until they were a fourth mile outside of town, where they could see The Coon yelling at professor Chaos with chains and open electronic cuffs in his fist. Mysterion slowed to a stop and began panting to catch his breath, managing to catch some of the "lecture" coming from The Coon's mouth:

"How far could the piece of shit have gone? He was there only a minute ago!"

"N-Not far," Professor Chaos muttered. He didn't like when The Coon yelled at him, it made him feel like he'd failed. "We should start looking."

"Bullshit!" The Coon pulled a wireless radio out of the front pocket of his pants. "I'm gonna radio the guards up at the cabin and have them comb the woods. Let's see Damien get that little blonde fuck of his back unharmed **now**!"

Without thinking, Mysterion launched a mini fireball at the radio, melting it and The Coon's only way to get any backup. Both villains jumped and looked over at Mysterion and Iron Maiden, just now realizing the heroes were there. Hell, they could've attacked at any moment. Why they waited for the attention of the two they were to fight, they had no idea whatsoever.

"Well, well," The Coon sneered, "the whore is here with the hunk of metal to try and challenge us." He laughed mockingly. "You couldn't take us down when all of you were together in one area, what makes you think you can defeat us now?"

"We don't need to defeat you," a fireball formed around Mysterion's fist again, "just delay you."

"'Delay?'"

"That's right." He waited only a moment longer before launching the fireball at the fatter villain, who quickly dodged.

Realizing that the heroes weren't bluffing, Professor Chaos reached into the pocket of his cape for one of his modified guns–and immediately stopped so that he could dodge the sudden onset of thick metal spikes being launched at him. When Professor Chaos could finally stop dodging, he ground his teeth together. One of the spikes had grazed his leg, causing it to bleed and hurt. Iron Maiden's aim had gotten better. That wasn't good for him or The Coon, if Iron Maiden had become this good in such a short span of time, he needed to be taken out before he alone could overwhelm them.

With that in mind, Professor Chaos ran forward with a Black Bird pistol clutched in his right hand. Mysterion saw this and stepped between Chaos and Iron Maiden as the metallic hero began focusing his attack on The Coon. His eyes narrowed as the barrel of the pistol was pressed against his forehead.

"Mysterion, move," Professor Chaos said in an almost pleading voice, "I don't wanna hurt you, but I have my orders to do so if necessary."

"Babe," Mysterion rapped one knuckle gently against the side of gun, "this is the paintball gun I got you for your birthday last year."

"Not anymore." As a confused look crossed the hero's face, Professor Chaos pulled the trigger, sending an actual bullet through Mysterion's forehead.

The Coon and Iron Maiden stopped fighting at the echoing sound of gunfire and looked over at Mysterion and Professor Chaos, who had a few tears running down his face. Mysterion, though having been shot in the head, remained standing with his head cocked back so that his horrified face looked straight up at the sky. A thin trail of blood leaked from the bullet wound on his forehead and down the side of his head.

All three wondered if he was dead, not sure only because he remained standing. Regardless, The Coon launched himself agilely into the air and gracefully landed next to Professor Chaos. He laughed hardily and clapped the small blonde on the shoulder. "Good job Chaos, you took out their leader! Now taking out the rest of them will be easy!"

"But," Professor Chaos dropped the pistol to the ground, "that was…Kenny…I killed him…I killed Kenny."

The Coon shrugged. "Ah well, look at it this way, he–" He stopped as Mysterion suddenly convulsed and a small flame burst from the bullet wound to cauterize it. "What the hell?"

Mysterion gasped for air and twitched slightly as his heart picked up its rhythm again. He head fell forward, sending him stumbling a few steps before he regained his balance and looked up at Professor Chaos and The Coon with eyes glazed over with both tears and death. "You shot me," he said in a voice just above of a whisper.

After a moment to allow the reality that Mysterion had just risen from the dead as quickly as he had joined, Professor Chaos finally said, "I was just acting on orders, Mys–"

"You **shot** me! You **killed** me!" Mysterion yelled the heartbreak and tears evident in his voice, which was thick with the beginning of a sob.

"I had my or–"

"You **killed me**!" Flame suddenly engulfed his form.

Iron Maiden suddenly got a bad feeling and decided to retreat back a bit. Nothing good could come of this situation, that much was obvious.

"I **love you** dammit!" Mysterion screamed. "Why don't you **love me**? **Why**?" The flame grew outward a bit as his anger grew and the tears began to flow down his face only to fizzle away into nothing before falling even halfway down his face.

Professor Chaos bit his bottom lip and backed away with The Coon. He didn't want to, but he didn't want to get burned to a crisp even more, no matter how much worse it made the situation look. "Mysterion, I still–"

The Coon clamped his hand over Professor Chaos' mouth and pulled him back. "Shut up, you'll ruin this. He'll incinerate himself, taking the dirty work of murdering him to scatter the heroes away from us. Now," he turned Professor Chaos' head to face him, "let's help that along." He crushed his lips into the blonde's knowing it only helped to anger Mysterion more when he felt the heat of the flame against the side of his face.

"Get away from him fat ass!" As Mysterion screamed, the flame shot upward in a towering inferno. Now fear replaced rage as the hero was lifted into the air much as he had been in the Soul Modifier. What was going on? Why wasn't the flame going away as he now wanted it to? Why couldn't he control it?

"T-Timmy," Iron Maiden muttered out with a clear, ringing tone of pure fear.

Even The Coon released Professor Chaos and backed off even more. He didn't think that this would happen, if he didn't act quickly, he could be incinerated right with Mysterion. He grabbed onto Professor Chaos' arm and yanked him roughly back. "Come on Chaos, let's go!"

Professor Chaos hesitated for only a moment before turning and joining The Coon as he darted away at top speed down the highway, passing the beginning of the trail again as Damien - carrying Pip - Human Kite - carrying Tool Shed - and Mosquito - carrying Tupperware - flew out from the tree-line and towards the pillar of flame with a hail of electric and water balls following them. When Mosquito's mind control had worn off, the six were spotted immediately by the guards surrounding the cabin and had fire opened on them.

After taking a safe path around the tower of flame, the three able to fly landed next to Iron Maiden. Tool Shed demanded to know what happened to Mysterion, getting his answer as one of the swords serving as Iron Maiden's arms pointed up into the tower of fire. Everyone looked up at where Iron Maiden was pointing to see a barely visible silhouette of a figure arched backwards against the now spiraling flame.

"Mysterion?" Human Kite yelled; his voice laced with concern. He had been right when he thought Mysterion was behind the pillar of flame that they had seen from the cabin, and now he wished he hadn't been. He thought that Mysterion could control the fire well, not lose control of it so easily.

In tower of flame, Kenny slowly opened his eyes and stared up through the open "eye" of the swirling fire at a clear sky quickly becoming covered in thick black smoke. He wanted to cry, wanted to feel the salty tears flow down his face, but the heat around him was too intense, the tears would disappear as soon as they appeared. _Maybe this is my payment for hurting him…maybe that's why he shot me, and why I'm to die in this fire._

When he heard the name of his hero persona yelled out, he looked over. Where the flame would part for a brief instant, he could see everyone standing there looking up at his general location concernedly. He saw Human Kite and smiled slightly. _Kyle's okay, that's good to know. Everyone else too…even Stan…I'm happy they're okay._

"Mysterion," Human Kite yelled again, "you can control the fire! Don't let it kill you, we need you! You're our leader, our guide! Besides, how will you ever rescue Professor Chaos from The Coon as a pile of ash? I thought you loved him! So you can't die! Get down from there, please!"

Kenny looked back at Human Kite as the flame parted for an instant once again. He really believed that the blonde could make a difference, could save Butters and win his heart back. Of course he thought that though, he wasn't around to see Mysterion get shot in the head and begin the meltdown that summoned the pillar. But there was something that did strike a cord in Kenny, the part that was said about him being their leader, their guide. A leader, him? Kenny McCormick? Was he really so important to them?

"Human Kite's right," Tool Shed called slightly hesitantly, "you are our leader Mysterion! You can't just die on us like this!"

Kenny's eyes widened slightly in surprise. _Stan? He…He's not mad at me anymore?_ The flame around him began to slowly disappear as the others began shouting their agreements that he was their leader and couldn't just leave them. _Everyone…they think I'm…_ He smiled and slipped his eyes closed again when the flame completely disappeared. _Thank you…Kyle._

As the pillar of flame vanished, Kenny began falling from his position about three stories into the air. Human Kite launched into the air and caught his friend before he could hit the ground. The redhead began shaking Kenny in his arms as he touched the ground again.

"Mysterion! Hey Mysterion, wake up!" When there was no response other than the breathing of the unconscious blonde, Human Kite looked over at where Tool Shed and Damien were now standing. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's just unconscious," Tool Shed reassured, "he'll be fine in a few hours."

Damien nodded and said, "Thank you, everyone. Now that I have Pip back," he wrapped an arm loosely around the thin blonde's waist, "I'm no longer enslaved to that fat ass and his bitch." He bowed his head just slightly. "I'm indebted to you." Pip nodded as well and bowed formally.

"Oh, uh, think nothing of it Damien," Human Kite said a little awkwardly.

"No, I have to. Look, aside from trying to seduce you, Stan saved Pip from The Coon and Professor Chaos. I **have** to repay all of you, somehow."

"I have an idea," Tool Shed said. "Tell us, are there others like you? Slaves to The Coon that are being held against their will because he has someone they care about as a prisoner?"

Damien nodded. "Yes, quite a few. Actually, every single person in The Coon's 'villain army' is a slave. You guys already saw Craig standing guard outside of the cabin, The Coon has Tweek. If they even think about resisting, the person The Coon is holding prisoner will be punished in their place, I've already seen one killed from it."

"Already?" Mosquito was astonished. How did The Coon manage to work that fast?

"Yes. The Coon is actually aiming to destroy all of you, and he wants it done fast."

Tool Shed nodded. That was no surprise; he figured that was The Coon's goal, you know, aside from world domination. "How many people?"

"At the very least, I'd say sixty."

The noirette cursed and kicked the ground. There was no way they could take on at least sixty people plus The Coon and Professor Chaos, that was impossible in itself. "Dammit, we can't fight that."

"Well, I'm sure if you can liberate more prisoners then you can recruit the former slaves to your side. I'm fairly sure they'd be more than willing to help take down The Coon."

Tupperware nodded. "He's right Tool Shed. It's a good idea."

Tool Shed sighed deeply and, seeing no other alternative, nodded. "Okay. We'll have to do that then. But we need to wait until Mysterion wakes up again to start that way we can have a time frame for the final battle."

"'Time frame?'"

"Is Mysterion a seer?" Pip asked with an intrigued tone to his voice.

Human Kite nodded. "He is."

"Oh wow! That's amazing!" Pip smiled widely, truly impressed.

"It is," Damien agreed. "Look, me and Pip should go so that you guys can get back to town and put Mysterion in a bed for now. If you ever need me, just call out to the sky, 'Fallen Angel' and I'll be there. Remember, I'm with you guys." He pulled Pip to him and flew up into the sky and back into town.

Tool Shed knelt down in front of Human Kite, still holding Kenny in his arms. "Put him on my back, I'll carry him back to City Hall."

Human Kite nodded and did as he was told. Once Tool Shed was sure he wasn't going to drop Kenny, the group began walking back to City Hall. Hopefully the mayor couldn't see the pillar of flame from her office; otherwise they'd have to explain the entire situation with The Coon, Professor Chaos, and their "army."


	11. A Place to Call Home

_Sorry for the delay, I would have posted this up last night, but I got caught up watching _Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II _with my best friend. Plus I was doing a million and one things today, __**and**__ I'm watching the end of _Survivor: Redemption Island_ with my mom whilst I write this chapter. _^^;

…

"Very good," the mayor congratulated as Tool Shed sat the stirring Kenny down in one of the chairs in front of the mayor's desk, "I couldn't have expected the same from anyone else."

"Wait," Human Kite looked between all of the heroes on either side of him, "what's she talking about?"

"She made your rescue our mission," Mosquito said a little angrily. "She didn't seem to care all too much."

"No," the mayor said defensively, "it's not that I didn't care. I just thought that if you guys couldn't rescue one of your own, then you wouldn't be able to be successful heroes. That's the only reason I turned it into a mission."

"You're fucking awful!" Human Kite yelled. How could she be so heartless? He'd been **kidnapped** by someone who could've been potentially deadly and the mayor wanted to make sure the others were truly heroes…? What the hell?

The mayor waved her hand absently as if to wave the insult away. "Fucking awful" wasn't the worst thing she'd been called during her years in office. "Well, regardless, you'll all be glad to hear that I managed to find a construction team to build you a base while you were gone."

Kenny, conscious enough to be confused at that statement, raised an eyebrow in confused. "We weren't gone very long. Did you get the freakin' Super Best Friends to build it?"

"Actually, yes."

"What?" His tone held an implied "I was just kidding."

"The Super Best Friends are building your base."

"You're joking right?" Human Kite asked with a slight chuckle, unable to believe that the mayor had really been able to recruit the Super Best Friends to build a base for the heroes.

"No. Is it really such a surprise?"

"Yes," all five of the heroes said at once. The thought that the Super Best Friends were building their base was very confusing. How had the mayor managed it?

"Regardless, it's happened." She waved their hand at them as a dismissal. "You can leave now. Sara is waiting for you downstairs to show you to the base."

Still confused, everyone walked out of her office, Human Kite helping Kenny to his feet as everyone else walked ahead. The blonde was having some trouble walking, his legs were shaking and he still felt a little dizzy from his being unconscious paired with the fact that the area of his forehead where he'd been shot was still hurting. He still had a hard time believing Butters–err, Professor Chaos had **shot** him between his eyes with the Black Bird paintball gun he'd gotten him for his birthday the year before. It was too strange, even after all of the weird shit that's happened and still happens.

When Kenny stumbled and nearly fell down the few stairs leading to City Hall, Kyle caught his arm and pulled him back to his feet, keeping his hand on the tall blonde's arm until he was sure he was balanced. Kenny smiled at the redhead and thanked him for the help. Kyle smiled in return but was pulled away when Stan grabbed his hand and began leading him towards the black limousine waiting for them.

Kenny watched as Clyde and Token - having transformed back from Mosquito and Tupperware - climbed into the back and moved to sit on one of the side benches, Timmy wheeled into the limo and settled near the front, and Stan and Kyle dropped down onto the furthest back seat. Heroes. The mayor had said that that's what they were now. But how could that be? How could Kenny possibly a hero when he couldn't even protect himself?

He poked the smooth area where he'd been shot not long ago.

Not everyone was immortal like he was.

"Kenny," Stan yelled, "come on!"

"Yeah, I'm coming." Kenny jogged around the crater in the ground from where Damien had fallen in front of them as they spoke with the mayor outside earlier in the day and jumped into the limo to sit next to a nineteen-year-old woman with short black hair across from Clyde and Token.

The woman's dark green eyes, hidden behind thin-rimmed glasses, looked at the side of Kenny's face. She blushed lightly. All of the boys around her were so cute, she couldn't help but to think what a shame it was that they were all underage. She cleared her throat, halfway to get their attention and halfway to clear her mind of the perverted thoughts suddenly racing through it. "It's nice to meet all of you," she smiled, "I'm the mayor's intern, Sara."

"Hey Sara," Kenny greeted with his usual drop-dead smile, "I'm Kenny."

"Stan."

"Kyle," the redhead said gleefully.

"Clyde."

"Token."

"Timmy!"

"It's nice to meet you all. The mayor says that you're superheroes, which, to be honest, I think is really cool." She giggled. "I've been into Marvel and DC Comics since I was little, so I totally support you guys one-hundred percent!"

"Uh," Stan exchanged a look with his boyfriend, "thanks."

Kenny, realizing Sara's obvious infatuation, turned his drop-dead smile to her and said smoothly, "It's nice to meet a fan of ours so soon." He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek and then brought it back to cup her face. "I wonder how excited you are."

Sara turned bright red and quickly backed away, much to Kenny's amusement - which he hid from her, though he knew the others realized he'd been teasing her for a reaction. "So, um, uh…" She turned her head to look of the window next to her and Kenny. "Oh look! We're here!"

When the limo came to a stop, the heroes climbed out and stared in amazement at where Jesus was standing with Buddha and Seaman admiring the large steel structure in front of them. A two story building with an unseen basement and a large tower coming from the back of the house, another smaller structure had been built to the side; this one was rounded and was intended to be a sparring building. The outside of the two-story building had been "cleverly" disguised as a normal brick house, though from the sheer size it width wise people would realize there was something off about it - or that the architect who had commissioned the house was trying some weird design.

"I can honestly say that I never thought Jesus would be building us a house," Kyle said with a slight laugh.

Kenny laughed loudly with his hands resting on his waist. "Same here."

"Oh," Sara said from behind the six boys, "and one more thing. The mayor said that if you never need anything to contact me first. If it's something that I can just take care of, let me know before trying to call her, okay?"

Stan and Kyle exchanged another look as Token said, "Okay. Thank you."

"It's nothing. Just doing my job. I have to get back to City Hall now; don't forget to call me for anything." She climbed back into the limo and shut the door loudly, signaling for the driver to leave.

When the limo pulled away, the six heroes walked over to Jesus, Buddha, and Seaman. Kenny cleared his throat, catching their attention.

Jesus smiled at the boys. "Hey there. You must be the heroes the mayor was telling us about."

Kenny nodded. "Yes."

"Hey Jesus," Stan greeted casually, "Buddha, Seaman." (He intentionally pronounced his name like "semen.") "Great to see you guys again."

Kyle nodded. "Yeah."

"It's Sea-Man!" Seaman huffed as he crossed his arms over his chest. It didn't matter how many years it had been, it was still incredibly annoying to be called "semen!"

As Krishna, Lao Tzu, and Joseph Smith walked around the side of the building with tools in their hands, Buddha said, "Moving on, it's great to hear that there's another branch of the Super Best Friends in America."

All six boys blinked in confusion and at once said, "Huh?"

"The mayor of South Park said that you six were going to be the Colorado branch of the Super Best Friends," Jesus said as-a-matter-of-factly. "That's the whole reason we agreed to build your base."

"Colorado branch?" Clyde mumbled to himself. The thought of being part of the Super Best Friends was cool he supposed, but he really didn't like the idea of having to answer to a bunch of holy beings, and another superhero, who he was never going to see.

"Yeah," Jesus drawled out, surprised that the heroes seemed so confused, almost like they had no idea they had volunteered to be the Colorado branch. "You boys **did** sign up for this whole 'hero' thing, right?"

"Of course," Kenny said quickly. "We signed up for the hero part, though we honestly never thought about becoming part of the Super Best Friends. But," he continued when Jesus went to speak again, "it would be an honor." He bowed just slightly. "We will be the Colorado branch of the Super Best Friends."

"So, are you the head of this branch or something?" Joseph Smith asked when he realized the tone of Kenny's voice was very strong and powerful, like a leader.

"Uh," Kenny looked back at his friends, who all gave him a nod; he looked back at the Super Best Friends, "yes, I am."

Jesus smiled. "Well then, if you'll follow me, I'll show you to the major areas of the base."

Kenny gestured to his friends, still standing behind him. "What about everyone else?"

"You can choose to show them what I show you, but really you're the only one who really has an urgent need to know of these areas." Jesus looked to Krishna and Buddha. "Could you two show the others the rest of the base?"

Buddha nodded. "Of course."

Jesus looked back at Kenny. "Follow me."

When Jesus turned to walk through the metal front door, Kenny stepped forward to follow. He looked around the foyer, a wooden archway lead from the doorway to the threshold leading to the living room, which had the appearance and peaceful feeling of the main room of a cottage. A light gray stone fireplace dominated a wall near a long hallway with eight doors, four on each side, lining the walls. On another wall, a flat screen TV was anchored to the wall with a long dark blue couch in front of it. To the right of the entrance was the kitchen, only a black marble bar attached to the counter the sink was installed in separated the kitchen from the living room - dark brown cabinets lined the back wall around the black microwave, hanging above the black oven/stove. On the other side of the wall the fireplace had been installed was another door, this one was electronic and looked completely out of place in the cottage-like setting. Jesus walked straight to this door.

He showed Kenny the pin number for the keypad next to the electronic door, causing the door to slide open. The wide empty hall beyond the door was made entirely of sheet metal; the official feel of the hall in front of them was a great contrast to the homey, relaxed feel of the living room. There was a wide staircase at the end of the hall.

The door slid closed behind Jesus and Kenny and they continued down the hall and up the stairs; at the top, it turned off to another staircase or stopped at another electronic door. Jesus typed in the same pin number and that door slid open for the two to walk through.

"This," Jesus gestured to the computers around the small room, at the left side of the room, beyond one of the super computers, was a wide window that led out to an open balcony, "is your private 'office,' so to speak. As the leader of the Colorado branch, you have your own locked off area for intelligence and whatnot."

Kenny nodded and looked around. The place was pretty impressive. He walked over to the window and slid it open to step onto the open balcony. "Why's this here? And why isn't there a railing?"

"Well," Jesus stepped onto the balcony too, "I figured on the off chance someone tries to attack you here, a railing-less balcony would give you a stronger presence, stating that you have no fear."

Kenny smirked. It was a good idea. "Smart thinking, I like it. So," he looked over the edge of the balcony at the front yard, "what's the rest of the base look like?"

Jesus turned and gestured with one hand back into the room. "Well, I'll show you."

The blonde nodded and followed Jesus back into the tower, following him up the stairs next to the door to his "office." This time the stairs spiraled around the perimeter of the tower until at the very top of the tower, where another electronic door automatically slid open at their approach. This time, a bigger room full of the same computers lined three of the walls, the fourth wall directly across from the door was lined with the same window from Kenny's personal "office" and led out to another open balcony.

Curious about how far he could see from that particular balcony, Kenny slid the window open and stepped out onto the balcony. He could see clear out to the other side of town. That tower was the perfect defensive and offensive design for the group! He looked around and saw that the platform was larger than the one outside of his "office" window. He walked along it, finding that it entirely circled the outside of the tower.

When he stopped in front of the open window again, he smiled at Jesus. "This is amazing dude! All of it!"

"There's one more thing." Jesus walked over to a computer and hit a button.

Kenny turned to look over the edge of the balcony when he heard the loud mechanical whirring of something opening. The roof of the housing area below opened up, showing the hardwood floor of the living room as well as the couch and an area rug that was in front of the fireplace. "What's that for?"

"It was Lao Tzu's idea. It gives the watchman easy access to the house for either a shift change or to warn of an attack should you or someone still be in the house."

He smiled slightly. "Great idea." He watched as the roof slid closed before turning to Jesus and bowing his head slightly. "Thank you for this Jesus, it's more than we could've asked for."

Jesus smiled. "Think nothing of it my child."

Kenny walked over to Jesus. "So, which button opens the roof?"

With that, the two walked around to each individual computer in the room so that Jesus could explain how each worked, and which button did what. It was complicated, and Kenny was glad that once he told everyone else how to work this room he could push it from his mind because he still had to learn how to work everything in his personal area.


	12. The Cost of Being a Hero

"Well," Joseph Smith said to the two boys, Stan and Kyle, in front of him, "what do you think of the home area?"

Buddha had taken Clyde and Token to show them around, Lao Tzu had taken Timmy, and Seaman was sulking in the corner with his pet bird Swallow when Clyde and Kyle cracked a joke about him and Swallow's names. ("Seriously, what's so hard about pronouncing my name?" Seaman muttered to Swallow.)

Kyle smiled. "It's nice, I like it. The living room is so relaxing and the rooms are wonderful."

Stan nodded. "Yeah, it's great. Thanks."

Buddha walked back from the hallway with Clyde and Token following. "The infirmary," he continued to the two following him, "is over here," he walked over to the kitchen and reached by the refrigerator, between it and the bar separating the kitchen and the living room, "is through here." He slid open a wooden door that blended in with the rest of the kitchen.

"How come it looks like the wall?" Clyde asked with a raised eyebrow. It seemed kind of ridiculous to make it near impossible to find the infirmary without someone knowing its location first.

"So it wouldn't mess with the décor," Joseph Smith said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Uh-huh…"

"Well," Jesus said as him and Kenny reentered the living room, "the infirmary is over here in the kitchen. Actually, it looks like Buddha beat me to that." He chuckled.

"Have you shown him the rest of the house yet Jesus?" Lao Tzu asked as he led Timmy back into the living room.

"No, but I was–" Jesus stopped talking as his hand flew up to his left ear, where an earpiece was resting. After a moment, he said quietly, "Right, we'll be there." He looked at everyone around him. "Sorry boys, we have to go. That was Moses, there's a problem in France that needs our attention."

With only a nod in response, Joseph Smith, Lao Tzu, Seaman, and Buddha followed Jesus out of the front door and away.

The six teens stood there in the kitchen for a minute, trying to figure out what just happened. They wouldn't end up being like that working for the Super Best Friends, would they? They would hate to have to cut off conversations or, well, "other things" so they could respond to something at a moment's notice.

"Um," Kenny looked at Kyle, "could you show me the rest of the house? After you do, I promise I'll show everyone the tower, which will serve as the actual base." He gave his friend a look that meant that he asked him for a specific reason.

"Oh," the redhead glanced at Stan and then slipped his hand from his boyfriend's, "sure." He grabbed Kenny's wrist and led him over to the hall. "Here's your room." Kyle opened the first bedroom door. "They all look the same right now, but we figured you'd want the room closest to the tower." He pushed the blonde into the room ahead of him and silently slipped the door shut.

Kenny looked around the darkened room, lit only by the dim light coming through white lace curtains that covered an arched bullet- and missile-proof window. A full-sized bed covered in a white sheet and comforter combination was pushed against the right wall, a small light wood nightstand stood next to it. A walk-in closet with a sliding door was on the far wall next to the window. And a small desk was pushed against the left wall. All the rooms look the same? That's pretty boring for six rooms, though by the time the Super Best Friends got the decorating, they were probably burnt.

"What is it that you wanted to talk about?" Kyle asked as he leaned against the hardwood door, one foot was propped against the door and his arms were crossed over his chest. That was his way of silently saying, "if you touch me, I'll fucking kill you."

Kenny turned to the redhead and said, "I'm sorry about what I did earlier. I overstepped my bounds, and I realize that now." He took in a breath and asked hesitantly, "Could you forgive me?"

Kyle's lips turned up into a small smile. "Of course I can. Besides," he pushed himself off of the door and walked over to the blonde to cup his face in his hands, "it's not like I didn't enjoy it a little."

Kenny let out a breath in relief and returned the smile. He was so happy that Kyle forgave him, now he had to hope that Stan would offer him the same forgiveness. "What?" He took a half-step back as he noticed Kyle's face getting closer to his, but allowed the redhead's lips to meet his in a tender kiss.

At first, he didn't move, afraid that Stan would walk into the room and actually kill him this time, and again Kenny wouldn't fight it - he'd come back a few moments later, but he didn't feel like dying. After a long minute, Kenny's hands instinctively rested gently on Kyle's thin waist and ever-so-slightly tugged his waist against his own. He leaned into the kiss, deepening it as his hands slowly moved to grip the redhead's ass. He could feel a huge rush of adrenaline flowing through him as his mind quickly rushed to the thought of shoving Kyle on the bed and fucking him senseless while Stan sat oblivious in the living room.

Kyle's hands immediately darted to grab Kenny's and he broke the kiss. He could tell where his friend wanted that situation to head and wasn't going to allow it. His fingers laced with the blonde's as he took a step back. "I'm here if you need me. If you need someone to talk to about what's been going on, or if you need someone to hold you and give you a shoulder to cry on. Or maybe," he pecked Kenny's cheek, "someone to remind you that you're still loved, just tell me. Because I still love you dude."

Kenny's mouth dropped just slightly. Kyle really loved him? Even after all the shit they went through when Kenny finally told him and Stan he'd been with Butters during their fucking, Kyle didn't hate him? "Kyle…" He smiled again. "Thank you."

"It's nothing." Kyle released Kenny's hands and turned back to the door. "What're best friends for?"

Kenny smiled until Kyle left the room and shut the door behind him. When the redhead was gone, the blonde turned to the bed and dropped down onto his side. His eyes slipped closed as soon as he hit the mattress. It was only seven at night, the sun was setting, but the day had worn him out. He drifted off to sleep. He'd show everyone else the tower in the morning.

…

A few hours later found Stan and Kyle, both stripped down to only their boxers, lying on the full-sized bed in their room with their arms wrapped around each other, cuddling. They were enjoying just lying there in each others' arms, especially since they knew that tomorrow they'd have to go to their parents and explain their powers and situation to them. For now though, just being with each other was enough.

"What'd you and Kenny talk about?" Stan asked suddenly.

Kyle stayed quiet for a moment, feigning that he had been drifting off and had to wake up again. "He just told me he was sorry for earlier," he muttered.

"…What'd you say to that?"

"I told him that I forgave him, and that I'd give him a shoulder to cry on and my time to listen to anything he needed to say."

"Why?" Stan's arms tightened protectively around his boyfriend.

"Because I'm his friend, and I won't be angry at him when he's unstable."

The noirette sighed and buried his face into Kyle's red locks. He wanted to be angry at Kyle for forgiving Kenny but he had such a good point that he just couldn't. "Okay…" He let his eyes slip closed as he felt his boyfriend relax and his breathing even out. He was asleep in moments.

Around midnight, Stan jumped awake when he heard a _thump_ from the ground next to the bed. What the hell was that? He realized Kyle wasn't in his arms anymore and decided to look over the edge of the bed to see if he'd fallen off of. When he did so, Kyle began to scream at the top of his lungs.

Stan leapt out of the bed and flipped the light switch on so he could see why Kyle was screaming. When he saw, he ran back over to the redhead with wide eyes and dropped down to his knees next to him. Kyle's back had split open in a thin plus mark where the kite would usually form, and blood was gushing out.

"Kyle?" Stan yelled. He gently grabbed onto his boyfriend's face, there were pain-induced tears streaming down his face.

"IT HURTS!" Kyle screamed as he grabbed one of Stan's hands in a death grip. "MAKE IT STOP!"

Stan shook his hand from Kyle's grip and picked the redhead up bridal style, trying like hell to ignore the even louder screams of pain that came with it. He ran through the door of him and Kyle room, after struggling to open the door, and down to the nearest room to wake someone up for help. He kicked the bedroom door until finally Kenny opened the door.

Kenny's eyes widened at the sight of Kyle bleeding in Stan's arms. "What the fuck is going on?"

"I don't know!" Stan yelled back, his own voice beginning to crack with the beginning of a scared sob. "Help!"

Kenny pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "Get him to the infirmary! Now! I'll wake everyone else up!"

Stan nodded and ran for the infirmary as Kenny ran down the hall, banging on Clyde and Token, and Timmy's bedroom doors to wake them up. Everyone was up immediately, following the blonde over to the infirmary when told.

In the stark white infirmary, the still screaming Kyle was laying on a hospital bed, staining the crisp sheets red with his blood, and Stan was desperately searching through the large metal medicine cabinet for something, anything to stop the bleeding.

"Clyde, Timmy," Kenny pointed over to where Stan was, "help him find some bandages and pain medicine for Kyle! Token, help me slow the bleeding!"

Clyde and Timmy ran over to Stan as Kenny and Token ran to Kyle. Kenny grabbed sheets from the hospital bed next to the one Kyle was lying in and had Token press them against Kyle's back. Kenny went to Kyle's front and grabbed the redhead's hand.

"Kyle, I'm going to push against your chest so there's a little more pressure against the sheets to try and slow the bleeding," Kenny warned, "it may hurt a little more."

Tears still flowing down his face, Kyle nodded. He screamed a little louder as Kenny's free hand pushed hard against his chest, causing more pain to course through him as more pressure was applied to his back. God, what was happening? Why was he bleeding so badly? Why was he in such pain?

"Kenny, it's not working!" Token yelled.

"Shit!" Kenny glared back at where the other three were still going through the medicine cabinet. "Hurry the fuck up! He's going to bleed out if you don't find something!"

"We're trying!" Stan yelled back.

Kenny looked back at Token. "Token, switch me places." He released Kyle's hand and jumped over Kyle to now press the sheet against the redhead's back.

While Token was pressing against Kyle's chest as Kenny had been, Kenny realized the sheets were becoming so soaked in blood they weren't doing much good. He threw it aside and reached for another sheet, stopping when he saw the plus shaped wound pumping blood. He didn't know what compelled him to do so, but he reached out and delicately ran the tips of his fingers down one of the thin cuts that made up the bleeding wound on Kyle's back.

Instantly, the wound cauterized closed.

As the cut closed, Kyle shrieked. It hurt even more than the wound itself! What the hell was Kenny doing to him?

With wide eyes, Kenny looked at his blood-covered fingertips. What happened? He then looked at the closed wound with astonishment. He healed Kyle? He nodded to himself, and then reached for the start of the thin cut near the top of Kyle's back. "Kyle," Kenny warned again as he grabbed onto the redhead's hand with one hand, "this is gonna hurt, but it'll close your wounds. Please try to bear it." He touched his fingers to the wound and ran them down the wound to cauterize it shut.

As he was closing the wound, successfully stopping the bleeding as he did so, Stan walked up beside him with bandages in his hand. "What the hell are you doing to him?" Stan demanded.

"Healing him," Kenny replied evenly. It was hard enough to concentrate with Kyle shrieking in pain and cutting off the blood flow to his left hand, he didn't need Stan yelling in his ear.

A moment later, Kenny drew his fingers away from the entirely closed plus shaped wound. His hand slipped from Kyle's now loose hand as the redhead panted and faded in and out of consciousness. He could feel that the bleeding had been stopped, but the searing pain from the wound being cauterized was still clearly there.

"Stan," Kenny said to the noirette, "hand me a sheet to clean the blood off of him." Stan complied, Kenny quickly wiped the blood from the redhead's back and picked him up to move him to a separate bed before wrapping bandages around his torso just in case the wound reopened.

"Ch-Changing was a mistake," Kyle panted quietly, "I wish…I wish I could go back…" He closed his eyes and fell into a deep, unconscious sleep.

…

_XD Ahahaha! Cartman has a small dick! Ahahaha!_


	13. Hypocrite

_I'm sorry I haven't been responding to reviews, but fanfiction keeps saying the reply link is broken, so I can't. Sorry! I really do love my dear reviewers though! ^.^ And here are some cookies to prove it! –hands out cookies–_

_I had to bump up the rating of this story to M because of a partial lemon scene in this chapter that I unfortunately couldn't avoid._

…

_Meanwhile…_

"_Ms. Mayor,"_ an older woman's voice said through a small speaker on the mayor's desk, _"a young man is here to see you."_

The mayor sighed. It was nearly midnight, what had taken him so long…? She clicked down a button and said into the speaker, "Thanks Clarice. Send him in and hold my calls."

"_Yes ma'am."_

A moment later, the double doors of the office opened and a figure stepped inside. He sat down in a chair across from the mayor; the moonlight coming in from the bay window behind her showed only his modern, custom made combat boots.

"I hear you're one of the best," the mayor said to the mostly shadowed figure as she folded her hands on the desk in front of her.

"That's right," the figure said evenly. His voice made him sound young, maybe seventeen, and held a lilt in it.

"I need you to do something for me. You see, there's a–"

"I know," he cut her off. "So, you need me to join this…Cat's side, right?"

"Err, Coon, and yes."

The figure's shadow could be slightly seen as he leaned back in the chair. "What's in it for me?"

The mayor silently sighed. She hated that this boy was being pretentious, as if expecting something. But she needed his help, so would comply with his asking for something: "I'll pay you up front, and you'll get to see that old friend of yours. What do you say?"

The figured smiled widely, showing his white teeth as he leaned forward into the moonlight. Short red hair was parted away from his sharp, defined face, his eyes were still partially hidden in shadow, the mayor couldn't see them. Aerin's lips now formed a smirk and he asked, "When can I start?"

…_1:00 am - Super Best Friends: Colorado Branch Base_…

For nearly a half-hour now, Kenny had been sitting on a swivel chair on a small metal desk staring intently at the X-Ray of Kyle's back. The only thing out-of-the-ordinary about it was that Kyle's backbones now appeared to be made of white metal or a white metal alloy. That didn't come as a surprise though, not with the kite that grew out of Kyle's back when he was Human Kite. His eyes left the X-Ray to look at Stan, sitting next to Kyle's bed, holding onto his hand, and Clyde, putting a needle into Kyle's arm to take a blood sample. Token and Timmy had gone back to bed.

Thanks to Stan's electronic control, they'd been able to activate the X-Ray machine earlier. It took nearly ten minutes to actually get it to work though since they had no idea what they were doing, and none of the three were entirely sure what to look for as far as abnormalities. Luckily though, the Super Best Friends had thought far enough ahead to put everyone's medical records in the infirmary along with most recent X-Rays and blood work results. That "just in case" situation that the records were there for had happened sooner than anyone had expected.

"Well," Kenny stood and went over to Clyde and Stan, "aside from the metal backbones that we expected, there's nothing weird about Kyle's X-Ray. Whatever caused his back to split open had nothing to do with his bones or joints."

"I'm doing a blood test," Clyde said as he took the needle from Kyle's arm and pressed a cotton ball to the inside of his elbow where the needle had been, "so hopefully that'll show something. Kenny, hold that there for a minute."

Kenny nodded and held the cotton ball in place as Clyde turned and grabbed medical tape to use to keep the cotton ball against Kyle's skin. The blonde sank into a chair he pulled up next to Stan and yawned as Clyde made his way over to a small computer to have it analyze Kyle's blood for any abnormalities. He turned his head so that his eyes could lock with Stan's. There was still anger present from what had happened earlier, but it had simmered down since Kenny had successfully healed Kyle.

"Thank you," Stan muttered, "I guess."

"It's nothing. He's my best friend; I'd do anything for him." Kenny yawned and stretched his arms out over his head. "Hell of a night…"

"Yeah… You can go back to bed. You're not needed here anymore."

He sent a quick glare at Stan and then turned his attention back to the still sleeping Kyle. Kenny wanted to yell at him so he could figure out why Stan still had a corncob shoved up his ass, but the sight of Kyle's sleeping face calmed him down. He'd yell at Stan later.

Clyde sighed deeply and rolled the swivel chair he was sitting in over to Kenny and Stan. "It's gonna take a little bit for the full analysis to be done. And, honestly, I'd prefer if you two didn't bicker like immature children while we're waiting."

"I'm not the immature child here," Stan said as-a-matter-of-factly, "Kenny's the one who tried to seduce my boyfriend!"

"I wouldn't have had to if it wasn't blatantly obvious that Kyle could do much better than you, asswipe," Kenny said evenly.

Stan released Kyle's hand and grabbed onto the neck of Kenny's white t-shirt. "You think you're so much better than me you whore? I bet I'm even better for **Butters** than you!"

More angered than he'd ever been, Kenny punched Stan square in the jaw and then shoved him back against the wall, pinning him there with a hand around his throat. "You bastard! What gives you the fucking right to say that **shit to me**?"

"Guys, guys!" Clyde grabbed onto Kenny's shoulder and yanked him back, away from Stan and stepped between them so they couldn't get at each other. "Enough! Look, Kyle needs quiet right now while he sleeps, so," he grabbed on his friends' arms and shoved them out of the infirmary, "until you're done with this bullshit, or until the blood work is done - which might happen first - you two are staying in the kitchen. I'll tell you when you guys can come back in." He slid the infirmary door shut and locked it.

Kenny and Stan glanced at each and then turned away, Stan leaned against the bar and stared into the dark living room, Kenny braced himself against the oven/stove and looked at the digital clock on the microwave - 1:10 am. They were expected to talk through their anger towards each other like a couple going through marriage counseling? Yeah, that would work after what had been done and said.

They stood like that for fifteen minutes before Stan finally sighed and said, "I just wanna know one thing."

"What is it?" Kenny asked with an "I don't want to talk to you" tone.

"Why?" Stan looked back over his shoulder at the back of the blonde's head. "Why would you do this? To Kyle? To me? …To Butters?"

Kenny's shoulders slumped and he hung his head to look at the burners of the stove. It was a good question, he had to admit, but it wasn't one he really wanted to answer. "Why do you wanna know that?"

"Because I want to know exactly **why** I'm so fucking pissed off at you!"

He looked back at the noirette's face, blue eyes meeting blue eyes only a shade darker than his own. "You really wanna know?" When Stan nodded, Kenny turned to completely face his friend. "Fine. I want to become better; I really do, for Butters and for everyone I care for. But ever since all this began, it's backfired on me. I thought becoming Mysterion would make me that better person I long to be, but…"

"It hasn't," Stan said simply.

"…Unfortunately, you're right. I wanted to become better as Mysterion, but it hasn't worked. Ever since Butters left me for Cartman with that false fucking excuse, I've just been sinking deeper and deeper back to that side of me that he'd been leading me from." Kenny's eyes met Stan's again as the noirette turned to face him. "I'm being reminded of what it feels like to be lonely again."

Stan's face softened a bit. He felt a twinge of guilt for being so mad at his friend when he was unstable and still getting over having his beloved leaving him for Cartman. Regardless of that, he still said, "I understand that you're feeling lonely Kenny, but it's no excuse to try to seduce **my** boyfriend. You have absolutely no right to even go near Kyle, let alone touch him like you have in the past."

Kenny sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I guess you're right…"

"Of course I am."

"But," the blonde stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of the noirette against the edge of the kitchen bar, trapping him there, "how would you feel if Kyle left you for that fat ass?" He ran one hand slowly up Stan's arm, ignoring the fact that he had tensed and turned light red. "How would you react? Just imagine it for a minute. Kyle, instead of Butters."

Seeing no other way to escape his friend, Stan allowed himself to imagine himself in Kenny's situation. He suddenly saw Kyle leaving with Cartman and Butters being the one in the infirmary, and felt such a low sense of dread and loneliness. He grabbed onto the front of Kenny's t-shirt and pulled the blonde into him, mashing their lips together. Kenny didn't fight it, just wrapped his arms around Stan's torso and snaked his tongue into his mouth.

Kenny pushed Stan on top of the bar and ran his hands down to the front of Stan's boxers, pulling absently on the waistband as he toyed with the idea of fucking the noirette right there. It wasn't like anyone would find out; Stan was quiet and the chance of Clyde walking out of the infirmary and into the kitchen was slim. Knowing that, Kenny pulled the noirette's boxers down.

When he felt his boxers being pulled down, Stan snapped back into reality and shoved Kenny off of him. He sat up on the bar and glared daggers at the blonde. "Kenny, what the hell are you–"

"**You** came onto **me**," Kenny pointed out. He stepped between Stan's legs again with a smirk gracing his face. "Besides," he grabbed onto Stan's hardening member, "I don't think **this** is for Kyle."

Stan shuddered at the feel of one of Kenny's hands slowly running up and down his length. "K-Kenny," he moaned lightly, "wait…"

"For what?" When he didn't get an answer, Kenny bent over and took Stan's dick into his mouth. Upon hearing a slight moan escape from his friend's lips, Kenny felt a sense of satisfaction towards the teen that he hadn't felt in a long time. He bobbed his head up and down, his tongue grazing Stan's shaft as he went.

Stan ground his teeth together, moaning and slightly bucking his hips to meet with the blonde's head. He tangled his fingers into Kenny's hair and helped him along. His legs bent so that his feet could push against the edge of the counter and his toes could curl around on the handles of the wooden drawer. His other hand rested behind him on the bar, bracing him as he leaned back just slightly and threw his head back so his lust-filled eyes could stare up at the ceiling. He'd forgotten how good Kenny was at this, forgotten what it felt like to be the submissive one who just sat back and took whatever was given to him. He found himself wanting that again, wanting to be dominated by someone, have his weaknesses exploited by someone–no, not just someone. Kenny.

"Oh God," Stan moaned louder than he normally did as he pushed his dick to the back of Kenny's throat. "I…I…!" His mouth opened wide with a loud cry as he shot everything he had into the back of Kenny's throat. When he was done, he relaxed against the bar, allowing his legs to dangle toward the ground, the hand in Kenny's hair to release him, and then hand bracing him to slip so he hit his elbow. He winced a bit but ignored the vast majority of the pain that shot through his arm at the contact.

With a mischievous grin now on his face, Kenny released Stan's dick from his mouth and swallowed all of the semen in his mouth. "I'd forgotten how good you taste." He leaned up and close to the noirette's face so he could see the lust still etched there. He'd missed seeing that look on this boy's face.

"Kenny," Stan grabbed onto the front of the blonde's t-shirt and licked some of the semen off of the corner of his mouth, "don't ever do that again." He pushed Kenny away from him and slid off of the bar.

"Wow," Clyde muttered from the door of the infirmary. His eyes were wide and his face was tinted light red. He had **not** expected to walk in at the end of a blow-job!

Stan's face turned red and he hurriedly pulled his boxers back up. "What is it Clyde?"

"I told you two to make up not give out blow-jobs. Besides Stan, after the way you reacted to the bite marks on Kyle's neck, what makes you think you can do this? I believe there's a word for that: hypocrite."

The noirette ground his teeth together and sent a glare at the brunette. "What the hell do you want?"

Clyde returned the glare and said evenly, "The computer is done analyzing Kyle's blood work. You're not gonna like the results." He turned back into the infirmary and walked to the computer with Kenny and Stan following him closely.

"What's wrong with him?" Stan asked quickly as he stood behind Clyde.

The brunette clicked on something and pulled up a white screen that had a complete analysis on it. He looked back at Stan and Kyle with some distraught on his face. "Though the computer isn't sure exactly **what** it is, it's showing certain attributes in Kyle's blood that point to a blood disease."

...

_Aerin belongs to DeviantTyger on deviantART, who gave me complete permission to use him in this fanfic._


	14. Not Near Our Side

"_Me and my friend saw a platypus/Me and my friend wrote a comic book/And guess how long it took"_

–Flobots–_Handlebars_

…

"A…blood disease?" Stan exchanged the same confused look with Kenny. How could a blood disease do what it did to Kyle?

"Clyde," Kenny leaned forward against the desk, braced by one hand, "that doesn't make any sense. A blood disease wouldn't–" He stopped and looked at the computer as an alarm sounded off from it. "What?"

At the noise, Clyde furiously hit keys until another analysis popped up on the screen. His eyes went wide and then traveled over to where Kyle was still sleeping. How the hell did that happen?

"Clyde?"

"It's not a blood disease…" His eyes met Stan's. "He was injected with some micro-bot that causes the metal alloy that is his bones to temporarily reject him after pro-longed usage." He turned his attention back to the screen. "Every time Kyle uses the kite in his back, it'll backfire either right after, or shortly after."

"But why in the middle of the night then?" Stan demanded.

Clyde shrugged. "I can't say. Maybe whoever injected him activated them to be sure they work, but that's just a theory."

"Who…?"

"Cartman," Kenny said simply. When asked why he thought that, the blonde continued, "He had Damien kidnap Kyle, he could've easily pulled him aside and injected him with the micro-bots without him noticing or caring because of that damn spell Damien had him under. Butters would've been able to make them as Professor Chaos, so how farfetched is it that this is once again Cartman's fault…?"

Clyde and Stan exchanged the same knowing look. Kenny was right, it could've easily been Cartman's doing, but for what purpose? What could the fat ass possibly gain from injecting Kyle with something like this?

Then it hit Stan. "What couldn't he gain?" He murmured to himself.

"What?" Clyde and Kenny looked over at the noirette.

He looked back at his friends. "Something like this, it could kill Kyle if we're not careful about it, right?"

Clyde nodded. "Yeah."

"If this were to occur during a fight with him, then he could gain the upper hand," Stan didn't notice Kenny's attention turning to the waking redhead, "since Kyle would be useless."

"Stan," Kenny said in a warning tone, "hold on."

"Not only useless, we could lose him. Kyle could bleed out in the middle of a fight."

"Stan, wait."

"And who knows if we'll be able to react as quickly if this happens in town? Kyle could die."

"Stan!"

"What?" Kyle sat up on the hospital bed and stared in horror at his boyfriend and two friends. Stan turned to look at the redhead. Oh crap. "I could **die**? What the fuck is going on?"

"Kyle…it's nothing," Stan said hesitantly, "nothing you should worry about."

"You said I could die! What part of that shouldn't I be worried about?" He tried to stand, but fell back down to the edge of the hospital bed when pain shot through his back. Damn! He gripped onto his lower back with a low groan. When everyone gathered around him, he glared up at them and demanded, "What the hell is going on?"

Clyde, Stan, and Kenny looked between each other. Who should tell him? He'd already heard the part about him maybe dying, so it was only a matter of who should tell him why and how he could die. Kyle's gaze was obviously on Stan, he wanted to hear it from the person he loved and trusted most, but the noirette wasn't saying anything. He really didn't want to be the one to tell him.

Instead, Kenny spoke up: "We think that when you were in Damien's custody," (_Custody? Why'd I pick that word? _He shook it off.), "we think–no, we **know** that Cartman injected you with micro-bots designed and created by Butters."

Kyle raised an eyebrow at the blonde's statement. "Butters? Butters couldn't build sophisticated micro-bots. You know that."

"Well, not Butters, per se, but Professor Chaos. You saw what he did to Cartman's basement. Imagine what else he could do."

He sighed and scratched his cheek. He supposed it was possible. After what he saw in the basement of the Cartman residence, he was sure there probably wasn't much Butters **couldn't** do anymore technological wise, but there was one thing bothering he about that theory. "Why would Butters make something to hurt one of us? He doesn't hate us; Cartman does, so surely Butters wouldn't listen to him if he was told to make something like what you're suggesting."

"Well," Clyde sighed, "I didn't want to say this, but I honestly don't think Butters is anywhere near our side anymore."

Kenny glared daggers at the brunette. He didn't want to believe that the teen he still loved really chose Cartman's side over theirs for any reason unless he'd been threatened.

Kyle sighed as well; he'd seen his friend glaring at Clyde. "I've been thinking the same thing."

Stan nodded. "Me too."

"No!" Kenny yelled. "Butters wouldn't abandon us like that! How dare you–"

"Kenny," Kyle said quickly, "stop." He gave the blonde a sympathetic look. "The more you deny it, the more you're going to hurt when you realize it's the truth. If Butters was even near our side, he would've released me from being held prisoner at the cabin, and he wouldn't be helping Cartman capture people from the high school, the town, and the surrounding areas to help the fat ass build an army."

"No…he's not…"

"You know it's true Kenny." He reached out and grabbed onto Kenny's hand gently. "I'm sorry dude."

_No…no…no!_ The blonde tore his hand away from Kyle's. "No! Butters isn't a bad person! I know it!" He shoved past Clyde and stormed out of the infirmary. He slammed the infirmary door shut and continued until he reached his room, slamming that door shut as well.

He wanted to lie down, or at least sit down and vent to the ceiling, but he was too restless, so he just stomped around his room yelling at the dark. Butters wasn't a bad person, he wasn't on Cartman's side willingly! He couldn't be! Butters wouldn't betray him and everyone else like the others were suggesting, he wouldn't!

_Butters…you wouldn't, you __**haven't**__…right? _Kenny stopped in front of the window and looked up at the clear night sky, able to see the shining stars for the first time in a while. _You're looking up at the same night sky right now…I know it…you're not bad, you haven't left us. So, I just need to know why you're with him then._

"Kenny?" Kyle said softly as he slowly limped through the door. "You okay?"

"Kyle!" Kenny rushed over to his friend and grabbed onto his arm. "You shouldn't be walking around yet. Come here," he guided the redhead over to his bed, "lay down."

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Regardless of what he said, he was gasping for each breath. The pain from his back was nearly unbearable when he walked, but he was trying his best to ignore it. It wasn't working very well.

"Bullshit." Kenny gently pushed Kyle down to sit on the bed and then closed his bedroom door. "What're you doing here? Isn't Stan worried?" Lately Stan would have even thought about allowing Kyle alone in the same room with Kenny, and with what happened earlier, Stan wouldn't have even allowed them to be near each out without some vast amount of worry.

Kyle linked his hands in his lap and looked down at them. "We got into a fight."

"Over what?" Kenny sat down next to the redhead.

"You."

He looked at his friend. A fight over him? What? "Me? Why?"

"Stan thinks you're going to betray us and join Cartman's side to be with Butters."

"I wouldn't!"

"I know. That's what I said, Clyde's with me. But he seemed to know why Stan thinks that." Kyle glanced over at the blonde. "Do you know?"

"No, I…" Kenny hesitated as he remembered conversation he had with Stan in the kitchen that led to the blowjob on the bar; that was probably why the noirette didn't trust him at the moment. Still, Kenny said, "…I don't."

"Why'd you hesitate?"

"Kyle, there are things that you're probably better off not knowing."

"Kenny–"

"Please, trust me on this. You don't want to know."

Instead of trying to fight for an answer like he so wanted to, Kyle sighed and fell back onto his back on the bed. "Whatever."

Kenny chuckled and looked back at his friend. "Sleeping in here tonight?"

"If you don't mind."

"Of course not. But," he lifted Kyle up a bit and moved him so that he was against his chest as he lay down, "at least lay down right on the bed. It'll be more comfortable for both of us," he chuckled.

"You're right," Kyle muttered as his eyes slipped closed. He couldn't believe he was still tired.

Kenny smiled and rested one arm gently around Kyle's waist. "I'm always right," he joked. "Goodnight Kyle."

"Night Ken…"

…_A Month Later – 1800 hours – Two miles from the Colorado Branch_…

Kenny sighed and adjusted the paper bag full of groceries in his arm. Damn groceries! At least they didn't need that many at the base this week, he just wished that someone had gone with him. Grocery shopping was so boring!

Ever since Kyle infirmity had been discovered a month ago and Kyle and Stan had their fight, things had been strained between the three friends. Stan seemed to try to avoid Kenny at all costs unless on the battlefield - which has only happened once, with one of Cartman's anonymous soldiers, he was dispatched quickly - and Kyle seemed to cling to him for support every time he and Stan fought. It wasn't all bad, especially not for Kenny, who has gotten laid quite a few times thanks to the fights. But he still couldn't stand how much of an ass Stan was being to both Kyle and to him; he was planning on demanding an answer as soon as he got back to the base.

He turned down an alley for a shortcut back to the base and picked up his pace a bit. "Almost back," he muttered, "thank God…"

As he past a certain area of the alley, a small area of brick opened its bright blue eyes and stepped out from the wall. The form immediately changed, taking the form of a slender fifteen-year-old girl with long brown hair in black jeans, a tight black t-shirt, and black combat boots. Her hands were clad in red fingerless gloves and a matching mask covered the bottom half of her face. The girl pointed a dagger she drew from a holster on her lower back at the back of Kenny's neck, causing him to freeze.

"Come with me," she said coldly. "The Coon requests an audience with you."

"You're going back empty handed," Mysterion said just as coldly as the girl. He dropped the bag of groceries to the concrete and jumped into the air and over to the girl's back. He kicked where the dagger holster was against her lower, back sending her flying forward. "Or shall you come back with me? We could use a captive to help our side."

The girl glared back at Mysterion. "That won't happen." Her form suddenly blended into the space around her. "Try to find me…!"

He looked around him, his eyes scanning the alley for any and all abnormalities or fluctuations in the scene around him. Just as he noticed one, a fist connected with the side of his face and sent him into the side of the alley. "Fuck," he groaned as he held onto the back of his throbbing head.

The girl came back into sight as she grabbed onto Mysterion's parka and held him against the alley wall with a silver handgun pointing at the blonde's throat. "I think you'll come with me."

"No he's not," Tool Shed said evenly as he pressed the end of a nail gun against the back of her head.

"What's stopping me from shooting him still?"

"He's immortal, you're not. If I drive a few of these nails into your skull, you won't recover. Shoot him in the throat and he'll get back up."

The girl ground her teeth together and then slowly dropped the hand gun. "Fine," she raised her hands into the air, "my hands are empty now."

Mysterion reached for the pistol and the shot gun still in their holsters on the girl's waist. "She's unarmed Tool Shed."

"Good." Tool Shed grabbed onto the girl's arm and jerked her so she'd be walking in the direction of the base. "Go."

With a slight growl, the girl reluctantly walked forward with Mysterion and Tool Shed directly behind her. As they walked, Mysterion fluidly bent down and picked up the dropped grocery bag. It was a good thing he hadn't bought anything breakable, jarred food or eggs and such.

"God Mysterion," Tool Shed said jokingly, "you got your ass handed to you by a little girl, that's gotta be embarrassing."

"Hey!" The girl yelled back at them. "I'm **not** a little girl!"

"Shut up! Keep walking!"

Mysterion sighed and rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Let's just get her back to the base."

…

_Nikkie/Lucida Dementa belongs to ComicFangirl7 on deviantART._


	15. The Informant

Stan shoved the brunette fifteen-year-old girl who had threatened Kenny, (as Mysterion), only minutes ago to her knees on the hardwood floor of the house area of the base. Surprised at the appearance of the girl, and Kenny's lack of caring as he placed the paper bag of groceries on the kitchen bar, Kyle, Clyde, Token, and Timmy turned their attention from the TV and went over to the girl. A prisoner? That was new.

Clyde knelt down in front of her, being sure to keep a bit of a distance since she didn't look happy in the least. "Who's she?"

"Not sure." Stan shrugged. "I found her about to kill Kenny so I intervened and took her prisoner for good measure."

"Good idea," Token said with a nod. "We could always use a prisoner on our side. We could probably use her to get Cartman to release some of his prisoners."

"Ha!" The girl scoffed. "Like that'll work! The Coon doesn't do prisoner exchanges, and besides that, if you don't release me and he finds out, he'll kill my sister."

"Your sister?" Kenny exchanged the same look of concern with Stan before looking back at the girl. "The Coon's holding her prisoner so you'll serve him?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What's your name?" Kyle asked concernedly. He understood that her name wouldn't matter since she was with The Coon, but he wanted to create some civil ground with her.

"That depends. Which name do you want? My birth name or the one I adopted under The Coon?"

"Well, uh, how about both…?"

"The name I was given after I was…changed by The Coon is Lucida Dementa." Under the mask covering the bottom half of her face, Lucida Dementa smirked. "My birth name is plain. Simply, Nikkie."

"Nikkie?" Kenny raised an eyebrow. Why did that name sound familiar?

"That's right," her eyes turned up to look into the blonde's, "Kenny."

His eyes narrowed. How did she know his name? He never offered it. He knelt down in front of her and pulled her mask down around her neck. Her face was rounded and soft with thin lips. Kenny recognized her almost immediately. "I thought your voice was familiar, Nikkie Stera."

"You know her?" Stan asked with narrowed eyes. There was yet another person on Cartman's side who Kenny knew?

"Her family lived down the street from me when we were kids. When you guys were busy, I'd often play with her." Kenny stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. "We were fairly close as children."

Nikkie nodded. "We were."

There were a few moments of silence in the group as Nikkie and Kenny just stared at each other, remembering days when they'd played together in the snow and gotten ever closer. Stan looked over at Clyde, Token, Kyle, and Timmy during this remembrance for Kenny and Nikkie. He wasn't sure how to take the knowledge of Kenny's friend being on Cartman's side, but she did say that Cartman had her sister held hostage. He got an idea.

"Nikkie, or do you prefer Lucida Dementa…?" Stan began.

"Whatever you want to call me is fine, you have the weapon at my back after all," Nikkie said as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Well, Nikkie," Stan strutted around to her front still pointing the nail gun at her, "I have a proposal for you."

"What is it?"

Everyone turned their attention to Stan, all wondering what his proposal was as well. Surely it couldn't be anything too outstanding - probably a "tell us where Cartman is and we'll let you live" deal - that'd be unlike Stan. With only a glance for approval from the others - which they all gave with a nod - Stan continued:

"We need someone on the inside of Cartman's ranks who could serve as an informant. You're perfect seeing as our leader," he gestured to Kenny, "knows and trusts you. Do this for us and we **will** rescue your sister."

Nikkie smirked. "Good idea. But what's stopping me from taking off after you've rescued her?"

Kenny, liking Stan's idea thus far, added, "We won't rescue her until we have enough information to take Cartman down. In the meantime, we'll need information to help rescue others."

"What?" She glared at her old friend. They expected her to sit by and wait until they've rescued everyone else before her sister?

"Calm down. Believe me; it'll be worth the wait Nikkie. You can trust us, and I know that it may seem like we're making an unfair deal here but it's the best we can do right now. Will you accept?"

Nikkie ground her teeth together. What other choice did she have? If there was even a sliver of hope that her little sister would be saved, she'd have to take it. She nodded. "I…I accept," she said with some hesitance.

Kenny nodded. "Good. Now tell me your sister's name."

"What for?"

"So we can file a report and know who we're looking for."

She sighed. "Ann-Lee Stera."

"Okay." He looked at Clyde. "Go up to the tower and add Ann-Lee's name to the names of those we already know are being held prisoner by Cartman."

"On it." Clyde turned and walked into the tower.

Kenny looked back at Stan. "We'll keep her here for tonight. Put her in one of the empty rooms or in one of the cells in the tower. Whichever you feel most comfortable with."

"Okay." Stan grabbed onto Nikkie's arm and jerked her to her feet. "Come on, I'll put you in one of the rooms."

"Let go of my arm!" She pulled her arm away and walked to the room Stan was pushing her towards with a few loud curses.

Kenny sighed and went back to where he set the paper bag full of groceries so he could put them away. Now that the official business was taken care of, they could all continue on with normal activities. Token and Timmy went back to watching Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan while Kyle decided to help Kenny put up the groceries.

"So," Kyle looked over at Kenny and gave him a shit-eating grin, "you were almost killed by that girl?"

The blonde sighed and scratched at his cheek. Well, if Kyle was going to give him crap about it, everyone else was going to also. "Yeah…"

Kyle laughed loudly. "God dude, that's really sad! You can take on Cartman and yet a young girl can nearly kill you?"

"In my defense, she had the same abilities as a chameleon!" Kenny waved his arms in the air. "I couldn't see where the hell she was half the time!"

"Right…!" The redhead rolled his eyes and threw the empty paper bag into the trash. "So, other than getting your ass kicked, what took so long?"

Kenny ground his teeth together and crossed his arms over his chest. Why the hell was Kyle digging into that matter? Was it really such a big deal that he got beat in a quick skirmish by a girl with chameleon skin? "The store was really busy today."

"I see. Well," Kyle gestured out to the living room, "wanna come watch some Star Trek with us?"

Kenny sighed and then smiled slightly. "On a normal day, I'd say yes, but with the emergence of another one of Cartman's soldiers, I'm going to have to pass. I'm going to take up a watch in the tower. Could you relieve me in four hours?"

Kyle nodded. "Of course."

"Thank you." Kenny walked over to the door of the tower and punched the access code into the panel. He walked up the stairs to the top of the tower.

In the top room, Kenny punched a few keys into one of the computers and then opened the windows before beginning watch as _"Dance With the Devil" _by Breaking Benjamin began to play. Music always made the time go faster when on watch, and Kenny's personal playlist happened to be filled with Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed, and Black Veil Brides. Rock music made him happy, and he still needed all of the happiness he could get.

He walked out onto the balcony and sighed. It was going to be a long four hours; it always was during a watch.

…

"Kenny?" Kyle walked into the room and immediately his hands flew to cover his ears as Black Veil Brides' _"Fallen Angels" _threatened to blow his eardrums out. "KENNY!"

The blonde teen poked his head into the room and then walked over to the computer to switch the music off. "What're you doing here? You still have a half-hour before it's your shift."

"I know," he looked back as Stan steered Nikkie into the room, "but we all think it's time to do something with her."

Kenny nodded. He supposed that they were right; keeping Nikkie in the base was probably like putting a ticking bomb in one of their rooms. "Okay." He gently grabbed onto Nikkie's wrist and pulled her over to one of the tall metal cabinets as Clyde, Token, and Timmy entered the room. "Nikkie," he pulled open the cabinet, "we need you to record as much as you can before reporting back, so," he handed her an electronic recording device, "you will record all you can with this. No matter so much or how little you have recorded, report back to us in exactly two months."

She looked at the recording device and then back at Kenny. "And what's stopping me from telling The Coon your plan and location?"

He smirked wildly. "Because I won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in the way of our goal, even an old friend."

With her eyebrows knit together, she gripped the recording device and held it to her chest. "Fine. I'll be your goddamn secret informant." She pocketed the device and then crossed her arms over her chest. "When can I be expecting my sister to be rescued?"

"Ask me again in two months. Now go back to The Coon."

She sighed. "Fine." She dashed for the balcony and flipped off of the edge.

"Shit!" Kyle yelled.

"She just jumped off the ledge!" Clyde yelled. Beside him, Token's mouth dropped to the ground. What the hell was Nikkie thinking?

"Our informant!" Stan yelled.

"Nikkie!" Kenny yelled.

Everyone ran for the balcony in time to see her land on her feet as gracefully as a cat. Upon landing, Nikkie continued to run off of the roof and then back to the north. Everyone exchanged the same astonished look, their mouths hitting the balcony. Holy shit! Did that really just happen?

"Uh," Kenny shook his head and blinked, trying to shake what just happened from his mind, "okay then. Moving on…"

"Hey Kenny," Kyle followed the blonde back into the tower, "I'll relieve you now if you want. It's just about time anyway."

He nodded and smiled at his friend. "Thanks. I'm gonna go lay down for a bit before dinner." He moved to follow Clyde, Token, and Timmy back down to the house, but stopped at the door. "Hey Kyle, do you mind," he looked back at Kyle and his eyes widened slightly, "if…I…" He trailed off when he saw Stan had one arm around the redhead's waist and one hand under his chin to tilt his face up so they could look into each others' eyes.

"We need to talk," Stan said sincerely, "so can I eat with you while you're on watch?"

Kyle nodded. "Of course."

"Great! Now," Stan's face shifted as a lust-filled smirk spread across his face, "do you want to have a before dinner snack?"

A matching smirk crossed Kyle's face. "Hell yes."

Just as they brought their lips together, Kenny stomped from the room and went downstairs. He didn't understand how Kyle could forgive Stan so easily. The noirette had been acting like a jackass and yet Kyle could still bear to touch him…? How the hell…?

Kenny punched in the code for his office and stepped inside. He dropped down onto one of the seats in front of a supercomputer and then kicked its front. "Dammit!" He ran one hand through his hair and sighed angrily. "Stan's a jackass, so why did Kyle…?" He growled and kicked the supercomputer again.

After a few more angry minutes, Kenny managed to calm down and see the ironic similarities between Stan and Kyle, and him and Butters at this point in time. Kenny was like both Stan and Kyle combined, he wasn't exactly being understanding - in fact, he did act like a jackass to Butters last time they met - and he wasn't being faithful even after crying and screaming about Butters' own infidelity. And he claimed to still love Butters…he wasn't even worthy of the innocent blonde anymore.

Tears flooded Kenny's eyes and though he kept wiping them away, they remained there. "I'm an idiot… Godammit," he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, "I'm such a fucking idiot!"


	16. Another Reason for Pursuit

"_You confess it all away/But it's only shit to me/(Your God ain't looking down on me!)/I'm not Jesus, I will not forgive!"_

–Apocalyptica –_I'm Not Jesus (feat. Corey Taylor)_

…

"I couldn't agree more, with what good you've done," a voice said from behind Kenny, a smirk ringing clear in it.

"What?" The blonde whipped around to be face-to-face with the redhead, Aerin. "Who the hell are you? And how did you get in here?"

"Who I am is classified info," Aerin said cockily. "How I got in here, well, that's something I don't have to tell you."

"Bullshit!" A fireball formed around one of Kenny's closed fists. "You're in **my** quarters asshole; now tell me how the fuck you got in here!" It pissed him off to think that some random guy managed to sneak into the base, into the tower, and then somehow into his office. Not to mention that this guy had seen him at a weak moment. He could've attacked him at any point in time, and that is what scared him.

"Teleportation, Sparky." He pointed at the fireball around Kenny's fist. "I suggest you get rid of that fireball before you get hurt."

With his eyes narrowed in anger, Kenny willed the fireball away though the urge to summon it at a moment's notice was still there. "Why are you here? Speak quickly," he snapped.

"My, my, so impatient," Aerin sighed. "Maybe I wanted to check out my competition before I joined that Cat guy. I gotta say, you're not that threatening."

Kenny raised an eyebrow. "Cat?" Didn't he mean Coon? Then what the redhead had said next hit him. "Hey! Look you little bastard, don't think for a second that what you saw here is how I normally am! If you knew half the shit I was going through…"

"You don't think I don't? All your thoughts, your emotions. All that and more come with telepathy." He tapped one of his temples.

"Telepathy?"

"Wow. Non-threatening **and** an idiot," he taunted. "That's not surprising in the least."

Kenny clenched his fists again. How dare he say that to him! "You," flames spiraled around his right arm, "asshole!" He thrust his arm forward, sending a fireball flying at Aerin.

He jumped into the air and avoided the fireball by doing the splits midair. When he landed, he smirked cockily. "That all ya got?"

Kenny growled and ran over to Aerin. When he raised his fist to strike, another fireball formed around it. "Goodbye."

The redhead fell back onto one hand and spun around, kicking Kenny's fist away with one foot and planting the other in the blonde's face. Kenny flew back into the supercomputer he'd been sitting in front of just moments ago and groaned. It felt like his head was bleeding, but it didn't matter. This asshole had to be taking care of! He hopped back to his feet and jumped into the air, bringing his foot down on top of Aerin's head and sending him to the ground. He did the splits back to the ground and then flipped back into a handstand in order to grab onto Kenny's neck with his ankles and snap it, not to the point of killing him but just enough to paralyze him. Smoothly, he did an inverted bicycle kick and sent the paralyzed blonde into the air. He then flipped back to his feet and grabbed Kenny's neck, throwing him into the ground.

In more pain than he thought he could possibly be in, Kenny groaned. Godammit! He couldn't move! Why didn't the fucker just kill him? _Shit… I don't know how much more I can take…_

Aerin crouched down beside Kenny and whispered into his ear, "You're pathetic. No wonder your lover left you. You don't have the strength to save yourself, let alone him."

Kenny growled and spit in Aerin's face. "Fuck you," he groaned.

Angered, Aerin wiped the spit off his face and then dragged Kenny over to a wall by his hair, pinned him there, and summoned a dagger to hold to the blonde's throat. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't torture you slowly until you die, and, while you're breathing your last breath, kill all of your friends **and** your lover before your eyes."

Kenny's eyes widened with horror. What the fuck was wrong with this guy? He breaks into the tower, paralyzes him, and then threatens to kill everyone he cares for? "You bastard, you wouldn't–" His eyes traveled over to where the door slid open to show Kyle, having finally gotten the pin number correct. Oh shit!

"Kenny? What's…" He saw Aerin and his eyes widened. "What the hell's going on?"

"Kyle, run!"

Aerin glanced over at Kyle and then had the door telekinetically slam behind the other redhead before he could even move. He turned his attention back to Kenny. "I would." Suddenly, the screech of a phoenix filled Kyle's mind, sending him to the ground shrieking in sheer pain. Oh God! It felt like his head was going to explode!

"Kyle!" Kenny screamed. "You fucker, stop whatever you're doing to him!"

"I'll stop when you give me the reason," the merciless redhead said emotionlessly. "Remember," his eyes traveled back to the shrieking, writhing Kyle, "clock's ticking."

Tears filled Kenny's eyes as he tried to find something, anything to say, but he couldn't. Instead, he yelled, "What do you want me to say? I'll say anything to get you to **stop this**!"

Aerin made a disgusted face and scoffed before tossing Kenny to the ground and releasing Kyle from his torture. "You are the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. Grow a backbone." With that, he teleported away.

Panting from the aftershocks of the pain, Kyle slowly stood and dragged his feet over to where Kenny was laying. He dropped to his knees. "Kenny, who was that? W-What just happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Kenny groaned. "Kyle," he glanced over at the door for a moment as it slid open and gave way to Stan, Clyde, Token, and Timmy rushing into the room, "I need you to kill me."

"W-What? Why?"

"That bastard paralyzed me by breaking my neck. Nothing can fix it except a revival. Kill me."

Reluctantly, Kyle nodded and grabbed a piece of sharp metal that had broken off of the supercomputer when Kenny had been thrown into it not long ago. He pointed the end of it piece of metal at the visible vein in the blonde's throat, highly aware of everyone watching on. "You're sure about this?"

"Yes." Kenny slipped his eyes closed. "Do it."

The redhead bit his bottom and then quickly stabbed his friend in the throat and dragged the piece of metal across it, splitting it wide open. He leapt back to his feet and backed away as Kenny's neck gushed blood. The blonde gagged and coughed as more blood flooded the back of his throat, splashing a few droplets onto Kyle's face before he backed away.

Finally, after a few more seconds of suffering, Kenny stopped breathing, dead. Shortly after, the wound cauterized closed and there was the faintest sound of bones snapping back into their proper places before Kenny sat up with a groan. He spit out a glob of blood still caught in his throat.

"Kenny?" Kyle held out a helping hand to pull the blonde back to his feet. "You're okay?"

Kenny groaned and popped his neck. There was still some mild pain there, but it was nothing an aspirin wouldn't fix. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"What happened?" Token asked concernedly. Judging from the damage done to the office, there was quite a struggle.

"Some asshole broke in and took me off guard," Kenny explained. "He paralyzed me by breaking my neck. When Kyle entered…" He glanced at the redhead, who looked like he needed an aspirin too. "Actually, I'm not sure what happened with that."

Kyle looked at everyone and evenly said, "There was a…terrible screech in my mind. It felt like my head was gonna explode."

Stan's eyes became wide and concerned. He suddenly felt bad for letting Kyle take off on his own when they heard the sounds of Kenny and Aerin's fight. "Kyle," he pulled his boyfriend into a tight embrace, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you come alone. This is my fault."

Kenny's eyes narrowed slightly. Why was Stan suddenly acting like boyfriend of the year? As much as he wanted to know though, he shook it off. This wasn't the time to ask questions like that, that was for later. He turned his attention to Clyde as the brunette asked, "Do you know who it was that attacked?"

The blonde shook his head. "Unfortunately no. When I told him to identify himself, he pretty much told me to go screw myself. I did manage to find out one thing though."

"Timmy?" Timmy asked from his place next to Clyde.

"He's working for The Coon–uh, Cartman. He came here to 'check out the competition.'"

"So now we have another reason to find them as soon as possible," Token said as-a-matter-of-factly.

Kenny nodded sharply. "Yes. If and when we do meet up with that psychopath again though, be careful. He's, well, just that, a psychopath. He took too much enjoyment in trying to kill me and threatening to kill all of you."

"Damn," Clyde muttered. So Cartman has a psychopath on his side now that can overpower Kenny and Kyle? That's not good. "We need more training."

Stan nodded. "I agree."

Kenny sank back down into the seat in front of the supercomputer and nodded and he crossed his legs, his right ankle resting on his left knee, and arms. "We do. But first, we need to take care of a few things." He pointed at Token. "Token, go upstairs and file a report to the Super Best Friends so they know the situation here before they find out on their own. Also, tell them to be ready just in case we need backup at a later time."

"Okay." Token turned and went upstairs to the open room to do as he was told.

Kenny pointed at Clyde and Timmy. "Take Kyle to the infirmary to be sure that he's okay. His injuries are still paining him I'm sure."

"Gotcha," Clyde responded as Timmy yelled:

"Timmy!"

"Stan," Kenny looked over at Stan as Clyde and Timmy left with Kyle, "I need to have a word with you."

"About what?" Stan asked defensively as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"This has been bothering me for a while now, so I want to know," Kenny's eyes narrowed, "why have you been acting like such a douchebag? You and Kyle never fought until a month ago, so why the sudden change? And also, what was with that act just now? The 'boyfriend of the year' act…?"

Stan took a breath and said calmly, "I know I've been acting like a first class jackass, but after what happened with you and me - you nearly succeeding in seducing me - plus I do know that Kyle goes to **your** bed when we have a fight," he ground his teeth together angrily, "I just get so mad. You're the one who got so heartbroken and angry when Butters left you for Cartman, and don't give me that 'shut up Stan' glare because you know it true," he added as he received said glare. "The fact that you're cheating on someone you still love while you're angry at him for exactly what you're doing is what pisses me off, but it wouldn't bother me so much if you weren't dragging Kyle into it, and trying to drag me into it too. **That** is what pisses me off the most!"

Kenny's glare didn't waver from Stan's eyes. He hated that Stan was pointing out the obvious, but as the words sank in, his anger slowly disappeared. The noirette was right, and he had every right to be angry with Kenny, but why Kyle? "Okay," he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees, "so you have a reason to be angry with me. So why are you taking it out on Kyle?"

Stan sighed quietly. "I guess I'm mad that he's being so supportive of you. I just don't understand how he could be when you've begun to revert back to the whore you were before you started to date Butters–err, before you **told** everyone you were dating Butters."

Kenny's eyes fell to the side with a sigh. He wasn't angry anymore; Stan was making too much sense for him to be too mad. "Whatever." He stood and walked for the door with Stan following him. "I need an aspirin, my head's killing me."


	17. Test of Our Intel

_Four Weeks Later…_

The day had started off normal–well, as normal as a day can be for a group of superheroes:

Everyone - except for Clyde, who was on watch - was sitting in front of the TV watching Stephen King's _The Langoliers_ on the Chiller Network. Kyle was huddled on Stan's lap; both had gentle smiles on their faces - their relationship issues were finally beginning to smooth out as Kenny refused Kyle any sexual comfort when the couple fought. Token and Timmy sat side by side on the opposite end of the couch, leaned back against the back of couch, completely relaxed. And Kenny sat next to Stan's feet on the wooden floor in front of the couch - things were still very tense between them, but they were getting along.

As soon as the movie was over, a session of sparring was planned and carried out. Kyle was now on watch as the session began.

The group had been training tirelessly since Kenny and Kyle's bout with the unidentified redhead four weeks ago, and they were already getting stronger. Attacks were mixed up and turned to the unexpected as they each discovered newer ways to better their abilities or at least make them last longer.

Kenny's flame burned brighter and stronger, and he was working on turning himself into a human torch. Kyle had nearly perfected turning his wind into razor-sharp blades that could cut through anything. Stan had discovered how to control multiple electronics at once, (and actually have memory of it, unlike when he fixed the basement of the Cartman residence). Clyde's mind control had doubled in strength, and he was now able to use a person as if they were a marionette. Token's radioactive rotting leftovers were now able to burn straight through metal. And Timmy had discovered he could actually bend and control metal - including the metal spikes he shot from the hollow eyes of Iron Maiden, which could now grow just slightly.

Around noon, as the entire group was sitting on the edge of the tower's watch balcony eating ice cream and talking - their version of taking a "short break;" it normally lasted an hour - a short high-pitched bell sounded off from one of the supercomputers. It was one of the rare sounds that came from the machine, but they knew it nonetheless: a message from the Super Best Friends.

"I got it," Kenny said as he stood and walked to the supercomputer. He clicked a green button and instantly a projection appeared on a now darkened area of the window across from where the heroes had been relaxing. "Oh, hey Jesus," the blonde greeted to the screen.

"_Hey Kenny,"_ Jesus responded._ "Where is everyone? They all need to hear this."_

"Oh, hold on." Kenny turned and yelled out the others, "Hey, Jesus said all of us need to hear this one!"

Groaning from their break being cut short, the others stood and walked over to be standing around Kenny as they continued to eat their ice cream. Official business be damned! They wanted to finish their ice cream!

"Hi Jesus," Kyle greeted vacantly, "what is it?"

"_You guys have been assigned your first mission. Moses is sending the mission file to you now,"_ Jesus explained.

Kenny looked over at the received mail bin as a piece of paper dropped into it. "We got it."

"_Great. This mission will mostly be a test of your strength thus far. It's simple, so you can't fail. Be sure to contact me when you've completed your mission."_

Kenny switched the hand he was holding his ice cream in and saluted. "Yeah, will do." He relaxed as the image left the screen. "Well," he bent down and picked up the paper, "let's see here."

_Location: _**Denver, ****Colorado**

_Year: _**2012**

_Mission Leader: _**Mysterion**

_Mission: _**Obtain Information On The Drug Cartel In Denver ****In Order To Take Down Their Leader**

"Information?" Kenny sighed. Such a tedious mission. He looked at the name of the sender and smirked. "The Governor himself has given us this mission."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Really?" That's impressive for their first mission.

"What's the mission?" Stan asked.

"We're to retrieve information on the drug cartel in Denver," Kenny said in an official tone he, even now, rarely used. "That's all."

Token raised an eyebrow. "Why's the Governor hiring superheroes to do something a police or FBI unit could?"

"Maybe there's more to it," Clyde pointed out. "Is there anything else?"

"Uh…" Kenny read through the entire thing and said, "Not really. Just the year, the mission leader, and–"

"Who's the mission leader?"

"Mysterion."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Why'd you even ask that Clyde? We all know Kenny's the leader, hell, everyone knows thanks to our appearances around South Park the last few months." There have been a few minor things around the town, mostly robberies and other tedious things. Regardless, the townspeople seem more than grateful for the help and welcome the heroes with open arms.

Clyde shrugged. "Just wondering if they put someone else." _Like me._

Stan rolled his eyes. He knew Clyde would be hoping that he'd be the mission leader, though everyone knew that would never happen. "What else was there?"

"The location. Denver," Kenny said pointedly. He dropped the last of his ice cream cone into his mouth. "We should prepare, we'll leave first thing in the morning."

Everyone nodded and left after finished their ice cream. Mostly, they went to get some rest. Tomorrow was going to be a rough day, they could all tell, even without Kenny having to tell them so.

…_The Next Day – 1300 Hours – Denver, Colorado – Motel 6_…

"Really?" Stan sighed and sat down on one of the beds of the old motel room the group had taken over for the time being. "Doesn't a run-down motel see a bit cliché to you guys?"

"Yeah," Kyle agreed, "it really does." He looked around. Dark, thin walls that needed to be painted, headboards that looked like they should've fallen to the ground years ago, a single small TV on top of a painted wood crate, and then the bathroom - it looked like it hadn't been scrubbed in nearly a year. "Plus I don't feel safe here, even though we are who we are."

"Sorry guys," Kenny said apologetically, "but this is the room Lao Tzu got for us. This is supposed to be the closest they could safely get us to the actual group we need to get information from."

"Well," Clyde sat down on the other bed and crossed his arms over his chest, "what's the plan then?"

"Stan."

The noirette raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I brought along some clothes and makeup to transform you into Raven." The blonde looked over at his friend, beside him on the bed, Kyle's eyes widened with concern. "A goth buying drugs wouldn't be so farfetched. I do it myself, but unfortunately they know my face and what I have become. That's why I'm sending you in Stan."

Stan nodded. "I understand."

"No!" Kyle shook his head. When everyone looked at him, he hesitantly continued, "I'm sorry, I…I don't wanna sound like I'm questioning your judgment Kenny, but I don't want Stan in that kind of danger."

Kenny sighed. "I know you're worried Kyle, but I thought it through all last night and the entire trip here. Sending Stan in is the best and smartest option. The group we need to intercept is meeting in a warehouse just inside of the residential district, the suburbs. A warehouse is bound to have tools scattered everywhere, so if something goes wrong, Tool Shed can fight his way out." Kyle's eyes slid to the ratty carpet covering the floor, he knew Kenny was right. "And Stan," he turned his attention back to Stan, "**should** anything go awry, be sure to radio us as soon as you possibly can so we can get you out."

"Right," Stan said shortly with another nod.

"I'll do that," Kyle said before another word could be said. "I can swoop in and grab Stan, we'd be back quickly."

"Actually," Kenny said with an apologetic look, "I was going to have Mosquito do that."

"Why?"

"We can't risk your back splitting open mid-flight! I have no idea what that would do to you, and that's honestly not a risk I'm willing to take! It would not only put you in danger, but Stan also! Think of that!"

Kyle ground his teeth together and tightened his hands on the bedspread. His back hadn't acted up once since that first instance, but everyone did what they could to prevent Kyle from using his kite. "It won't happen."

"Kyle–"

"Kenny, listen to me! I'm tired of being left behind because you guys are afraid!" He stood and pointed at himself. "I'm not afraid of being hurt by those fucking micro-bots, so just trust me on this!"

Upon seeing the absolute determination on the redhead's face, Kenny sighed resignedly. "Fine. What does everyone else think on the matter?"

"If Kyle thinks he's up for it," Token said with a hint of doubt in his voice, "I say let him do it."

Clyde nodded. "I feel the same."

"Timmy!" Timmy yelled in agreement.

When nothing else was said, Kenny looked at Stan once again. "Stan?"

"…I don't like it. I don't want Kyle risking his safety and even his life for me. If anything happened to him, I might…" Stan rested his forehead in his linked hands. "I might die…"

"So that's a 'no?'"

"It's a no."

"Everyone knows my stance on this matter, but it seems that me and Stan are outnumbered." Kenny looked at Kyle. "Kyle, you will be Tool Shed's emergency lift should anything go wrong."

A small smile rested on the redhead's face and he nodded. "Nothing will go wrong."

"I'll be sure of that," Stan nearly growled. When Kyle glanced at him, he sharply stood and stepped outside.

"Stan," Kyle mumbled with a sigh. He didn't know why Stan was making such a fuss about it; he wasn't going to just stay cooped up because of the micro-bots.

"Kyle, you don't understand Stan's position," Kenny said. "I know you're restless, but it would just be safer for you if you stayed here."

"I know that, but you guys can't keep trying to keep me safe just because of some fucking robots." Kyle stood up. "I'll go talk to him."

"Get him back in here. We need to get his makeup on him."

"Okay." He opened the door and stepped outside to join Stan. "Hey."

Staring at the ground, Stan asked, "Why did you insist on doing this? You **know** you could get hurt."

"I can't let you go by yourself and I want to be the one near you." Kyle crossed his arms over his chest. "Besides, if things go bad to the point where you could die, I want to be there so that we can fight together until the end."

Stan sighed. "I understand that you want to be by my side for this, but couldn't you try to understand how I feel about it?" He cupped Kyle's cheek and looked seriously into his eyes. "I don't want you hurt."

Kyle held Stan's hand against his face and smiled softly. "I know you're worried, but please don't be. I'll be fine. Besides, nothing gonna go wrong. I'll just be there a precautionary lift out for you. And even if something does go wrong, I will be okay, I won't let you or anyone else down, and **refuse** to let you guys think I'm useless anymore."

The noirette sighed again. He could see the resolve in Kyle's eyes, there was no changing his mind on the matter. "Fine, but I still don't like it."

"I know Stan, I know."

…_2245 Hours – Denver, Colorado – Warehouse 7_…

Slowly, a pale teen in a black trench coat and painted in black makeup skulked into the metal warehouse with the white 7 painted over the open bay door. Attached to his right ear, what appeared to be a hanging black inverted cross earring sounded off lowly in his ear.

"_Tool Shed–err, Raven,"_ Mysterion's voice said quickly, _"remember to get the information we need and get out. Do __**not**__ engage the targets unless they attack first. Do you understand?"_

Raven pressed one finger absently to the side of his head and mumbled, "Yeah, I understand. Don't worry Mysterion; I'll make sure Human Kite doesn't have to exert himself."

"_Hey,"_ Human Kite's voice sounded annoyed, _"that's not cool! I'm out here just in case you need a lift! You could at least sound grateful!"_

"I am," he mumbled, "but I don't want you flying."

Human Kite sighed, _"Yeah, I know."_

"_Okay,"_ Mysterion intervened, _"Raven needs to stop talking now, I'm sure he's getting close to the targets. The last thing we need is an immediate extraction. Raven, don't use the radio again unless you need a lift out of there, okay?"_

"Yeah."

"_And Human Kite, don't contact him at all while he's in there. Got it?"_

"_Yes sir."_

"_Right. Over and out."_

Raven continued forward, stopping briefly only to be sure that the shotgun, nail gun, and dagger he'd hidden under his trench coat were still there. Hey, you can never be too careful. He turned a small tower of boxes and saw the targets then. A small gathering of four people - five if one more was hiding behind the boxes they were standing next to - standing in a tight group muttering something about crack and money, nothing out of the ordinary for drug dealers.

When none of the men noticed his approach, Raven made his footsteps heavier, causing his boots to echo off of the ground and the metallic walls of the warehouse. That caught their attention; they all looked over at him.

"Hey," one of the men, a blonde, turned to him as the other pulled guns out, "what're you doin' here, punk? Get lost!"

Raven pointed with one finger at the man - his hands were covered in fingerless black gloves - and said evenly, "You're Vincent, and the other three with you are Rick, Xavier, and Mike. You're the warehouse seven dealers."

With a heavy German accent, the black-haired one asked, "How do jou know zat?"

"I was told by Karen McCormick of South Park where to find you and who you are. She says you sell the best shit. Am I right, Xavier?"

Xavier smirked. "Vy jes, ve do."

"Enough talk," Vincent said quickly. "Karen is an old friend and constant buyer, I trust you enough. So, what do you want?"

"I need some crack for me and my woman," Raven said with a practiced tone of absent emotion, "so how much of your stuff would you recommend?"

"Do you two snort or shoot up?"

"I snort, she shoots."

Vincent chuckled. "The little lady's got more guts than you, I like that."

"I wouldn't say I've got more guts than Raven," a girly voice sounded off, echoing through the warehouse, "but I do appreciate the compliment."

Raven whipped around in time to see a redhead, hair pulled back into a low ponytail with their bangs covering their right eye, strut up in a black trench coat open at the top, short shorts that couldn't be seen, and knee-high black leather stiletto boots. An earring mirroring Raven's hung off of the left ear. He couldn't believe his eyes. It was Kyle! And, somehow, the dude had cleavage! Raven was astonished, simply at a loss for words at his boyfriend's appearance.

Kyle stopped next to Raven and put one hand delicately yet firmly on his hip, truly mimicking the girl persona he was dressed for. "And I'm not little," he continued in his girly voice.

Vincent smirked again. "You're his girlfriend?"

"I am."

"Your name?"

"Kylie."

"Kylie, eh?" Vincent grabbed onto the hand of Kyle's not resting on his hip and kissed the top of it. "Beautiful name for a sexy woman."

Raven grabbed on Kyle's arm and pulled him back away from Vincent. "Don't touch her," he said threateningly.

Vincent threw his hands into the air. "Whatever you say Raven."

Before Raven could demand an answer as to why Kyle was there, Xavier said, "Vy Raven, vat an incredibly sexy voman jou haff. Jou are lucky. And if jou are villing, I vill trade jou ze crack for her." He laughed with the two brunette twins, Mike and Rick, standing behind him.

Raven sent a glare at Xavier. "No, ass–"

"Sorry boys," Kyle said in a teasing tone, he added a playful wink for extra measure, "I'm not for sale." He hugged Raven. "What would my beautiful Raven do without me?"

Vincent chuckled and grabbed what he had been told. "Here you two lovebirds go. Pure grade. For you," he gestured to Raven, "to snort, and for you," he gestured to Kyle, "to shoot."

Raven dug the cash roll out of his trench coat pocket and traded it for the crack. "Thanks." He grabbed Kyle's hand and pulled him back out the way they came in. It was hard not to turn around and attack the four drug dealers when they started to make sex jokes about "Kylie" too loud.

When they were far enough away from the warehouse, Stan stopped and whipped around to face Kyle. "What the hell is wrong with you? What were you thinking?"

"Well, not something smart," Kyle said absently, his voice back to normal, as he rubbed the soles of his feet through the boots. "These shoes are killing me. How do women wears these things to clubs?"

"Kyle!" Stan snapped his fingers to catch the redhead's attention. "That's not what I'm talking about! They could've seen through that and saw you're a guy! Did you **not** think of that?"

Kyle crossed his arms under the fake, b-cup boobs Kenny had fabricated out of latex and stage makeup. "Don't look at me, this was Mysterion's idea. He thought it'd make the story more believable if I walked in there. Besides, I felt better knowing that I could help you if something went wrong quickly."

"Godammit!" Stan pressed the earpiece. "Mysterion, did you–"

"_Yes Stan, I did,"_ Mysterion said evenly. _"Granted, it probably wasn't my smartest idea, but it was sound. Everything went by without a problem though so don't worry about it. And if you want to continue to worry about it and yell at me for this decision, that's fine, but at least get back to the hotel first. And Stan, don't blame Kyle, it wasn't his idea."_

Stan sighed heavily and grabbed Kyle's hand. "Come on," he led him along the road leading back to the hotel, "I need to give our leader a piece of my mind."


End file.
